Shooting Lessons
by Fearlesswriter6
Summary: When Clint and Natasha are left doing nothing on their day off, Natasha suggests doing something, but when a sudden meeting with the Avengers leads to a new threat and new villains, new skills may prove to be more useful then previously thought. Rated 'T' for language in some parts.
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

"I'm bored. Let's do something please?" Natasha wined as Clint and she sat on a couch in a S.H.I.E.L.D. common room during one of their days off. Clint seemed to be enjoying himself quite fine as he sat watching the world news. Natasha never found the enjoyment in sitting around doing nothing, she always had to be up and moving someplace. Clint looked over at her with a sympathetic face.

"Aww…" he said sympathetically, "I'm playing the world's smallest violin for you. Can't you hear it?" He motioned a small violin and instead of laughing, Natasha punched him as hard as she could in his shooting arm. That got his attention. "OW! What was that for?" He turned to face her, confusion written all over his face.

"You're making fun of me, and it isn't funny! Let's do something."

"I _am _doing something." He motioned towards the television which only angered Natasha more.

"Yeah, but I hate the news. I'd rather be in it then have to watch it. You should know that by now."

Clint sighed and looked over at her with an irked expression. "But they're talking about Manhattan and the clean-up, isn't that worth watching?" He had hoped that she would grant him access to continue watching, but her face told otherwise.

Natasha reached across his lap and picked up the remote. "No." she clicked the power button and the television shut off, dead from the world.

Clint sighed and stood up groaning. "Fine… what do you want to do? Clearly you've got something in mind?"

She was practically jumping out of her skin and was trying desperately to contain herself. "Will you teach me to shoot?" She braced herself for the surprise that was sure to come from Clint at her sudden request to learn how to shoot.

"You want to learn how to shoot?" Clint had a mixture of confusion and even a little of hope. Hope being that maybe he could teach her something she didn't already know how to do.

"Yeah, I mean, archers look so elegant and quick." Natasha shrugged knowing what was probably about to come out of his mouth.

"You think _I'm _elegant and quick?" His mouth worked its way into a smile and he was trying to contain himself. "You think I'm elegant… _and _quick!"

Natasha rolled her eyes regretting what she had said. Knowing Clint he was going to drag this out for as long as possible. "Now I never mentioned any names…"

Walking slowly over to her, he wrapped his arms around her. He was losing a battle against himself as he was now smiling from practically ear to ear. She had admitted that when he shot he looked elegant. "Yeah well…I'm an archer…and you said it." He pecked her on the head and walked towards the door. "And by the way, you can call me _Mr. _Barton now that I'm your teacher. Hurry, class is about to start and you don't want to be late now Ms. Romanoff…"

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_**Author's**__** notes:**_** So this is just a quick intro of a story I am thinking of doing. It was actually kind of fun to write, and I actually drew a picture to accompany what would be the next chapter.**

**Also, with my story: "A Change in Heart", I'm working on a few chapters to come before and after what I have written on here, so look out for those...**

**Let me know how you like this and give me feedback on how I can improve or what you think I should change! Thanks!**


	2. Chapter 2: Secrets and Lessons

**Author's notes:** **_Chapter 2 of "Shooting Lessons". Thanks so much for the feedback on chapter 1, it makes writing a whole lot more fun._**

**_Last time: Clint and Natasha are sitting around and Natasha begs to do something that doesn't include watching the news. She asks him to teach her to shoot and he agrees. (bad summary is bad, you should just go read it again if you don't remember something.)_**

* * *

Sighing, Natasha picked up her jacket from the couch and followed Clint out the door. She knew her way to the training room he always practiced at. Sometimes in the wee hours of night when he had thought her to be asleep, she would escape from a bad dream she might be having and find him shooting at a range of targets. These late night sessions had only increased after the whole Manhattan ordeal. She started having more nightmares and judging by the frequency of his visits as well, he was having more as well. When she would sit perched up high watching him without his knowing she felt a bit like Clint himself; sitting all alone in the rafters watching things from afar.

Now as she walked through the doors from ground level instead of the open ledge she usually crawled through, she glanced up at where she always sat. She realized that her hiding place wasn't very discreet and wondered how he had never spotted her.

Clint stopped a little ways ahead and because Natasha wasn't paying attention, she plowed into the back of him. She staggered a bit at the sudden stop and backed away a little embarrassed. Clint didn't turn around but only chuckled as he walked over to a wall on the other side of the room. She gazed over at him to where he was punching in a code which in turn opened a little secret hatch. He pulled out his black bow and snapped in into place. He reached up again as he plucked his arm guard and glove for his fingers off of their respective hooks.

He sauntered back towards Natasha with a small smile on his face. "Sorry, I didn't ask. You ok? You kind of ran into me pretty hard." Natasha rubbed her forehead and looked up at him. She smiled and nodded her approval.

"Yep, I'm fine, I was just looking around. I haven't come in here very often…"

Clint looked over at her through the corner of his eye. "Liar." Was all he said.

Natasha stared at him for a minute in disbelief as he stood there gearing up. "Excuse me Barton? Did you just call me a _liar_?"

He turned to look at her. "The name is _Mr. _Barton, and yes, I am calling you a liar. Now if you had said that you hadn't come down to the main floor often I would have believed you."

Crossing her arms Natasha tried to fight a battle that she was losing fast. "What do you mean?" she tried to act innocent and agitated at the same time, but it clearly wasn't working to her advantage.

"You aren't fooling anyone Tasha; I've seen you sitting in the rafters. You aren't exactly _hiding _when you sit up there. You sit there and watch me late at night when you can't sleep," Natasha's mouth gaped slightly but before she could interject he quickly continued on. "I would know you couldn't sleep when you came down here because I do the same. Archery is one of the only things that can calm me down, so when I can't sleep I come here. You must automatically gravitate here because you want to see my elegance, am I right?" Clint brought back around her comment she had made earlier which made her roll her eyes slightly.

"Well you _are _right…" she mumbled.

Clint gave a triumphal smile and handed her a finder glove and arm guard. He must have took them without her looking considering she thought she had watched him the whole time, and he hadn't picked up anything besides his gear.

She slid the glove onto her small hand and flexed her fingers. She only ever wore fingerless gloves, but they still covered all five of her fingers. The archery glove she wore now only covered three, and they were to prevent calluses from forming on the fingers that pulled back on the string of the bow. Next up came the arm guard. Positioning and strapping a piece of leather to your arm proved to be challenging by oneself. Clint ended up walking over to her and taking it from her possession and helping her to put it on.

"There, now you look just like me." She smirked at him.

"Are you sure…because I think the height difference, hair color, and the fact that you're a guy kinda throws me off a bit…" Natasha countered, listing the reasons on her fingers.

"Pshh…those are just technical things," Natasha couldn't help but chuckle at Clint's attempt to be funny. "Now, back to the _lesson; _you aren't going to get this good," He took out an arrow and nocked it sending it flying into the bullseye behind him, "without a little practice. Come on, I'll show you."

Natasha couldn't help but roll her eyes at Clint's cockiness. "What first _Mr. Barton_?"

"First, we work on stance." He took her shoulders and postioned her frame perpendicular to the target. "You're gonna _always _want to stand like this in relation to your target. It's virtually impossible to get an accurate well executed hit if you're standing head on faceing the target." Natasha nodded taking in her current stance. Her feat here apart and her head was turned but her body was not.

Clint placed his bow in her hands. She looked up at him with a questioned expression. "Aren't you afraid that I'm gonna…I don't know…_break _it?"

"Nat, you couldn't break this bow if you tried, besides, I know you'd kill yourself if you did anything to it."

Natasha snorted. "I wouldn't go _that _far…"

"I guess we'll see…" Clint said mischievously as he took Natasha's hand and helped her position her fingers on the bow.

* * *

_**Ends a little odd... Clint has something up his sleeve (doesn't include Natasha killing herself, just in case you were wondering) and he intends to use it soon... I hope. **_

_**I ended it right before she actually starts to shoot, because stuff goes down in the next chapter! **_

_**Review if you want to try and help me improve as a writer, or if you think I should change something here! Thanks so much!**_


	3. Chapter 3: Disturbances

**Author's notes:** I own nothing of Marvel or Disney related.**  
**

Thank you for all the positive feedback on Chapter 2, I hope this follows up nicely. I'm not sure how "in character" all of the Avengers are in this chapter, but I'm trying to get better at that aspect.

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**Previously on Shooting Lessons**:

Clint placed his bow in her hands. She looked up at him with a questioned expression. "Aren't you afraid that I'm gonna…I don't know…_break _it?"

"Nat, you couldn't break this bow if you tried, besides, I know you'd kill yourself if you did anything to it."

Natasha snorted. "I wouldn't go _that _far…"

"I guess we'll see…" Clint said mischievously as he took Natasha's hand and helped her position her fingers on the bow.

* * *

"What makes you so certain that something will happen, Barton?" She asked wryly looking up at him.

"Oh I don't know, you're just like that."

Scoffing Natasha looked back at the target ready to fire. Clint instructed her to pull her hand back and anchor it someplace on her face in order to get a more accurate shot. "Now, when you're getting ready to shoot, you want to make sure you're completely confident with your shot. Breathing can help you, nice slow breaths, and when you're sure you've got it…" Clint took his hands off of her and she released her hold in the string. A small gasp, so low Clint wasn't even sure he had heard something, escaped her lips as the arrow flew into the target. For several moments she stood there not sure of what to do. Clint walked down the lane and to the target and pulled out the blunt arrow.

"Right in the yellow, so close to the bull's eye…nice job Romanoff," Clint proclaimed as he walked back to her. "You know…for a first timer."

This broke Natasha out of her reverie. "What makes you think that I haven't done this before?" She countered.

"Because, I know you; you prefer guns, and knives, and weapons that require almost no prep time. A bow requires thinking out every move you make ten minutes in advance. Before S.H.I.E.L.D., when you were on a mission, you weren't even sure if you'd be alive in ten minutes. I just know you Tash."

Natasha didn't have a counter attack so instead she waited for Clint to walk back over to her and hand her the only blunt arrow that he owned. Just as the arrow was in her grasp though, a high pitched noise came from under Clint's jacket a few feet away which startled Natasha.

"What was that?" Natasha asked looking around. It wasn't the usual sound of one of their phones or communicators, so the noise made her jump.

Clint sighed and walked over to where the sound was coming from. He fumbled in his jacket until he found the source of the noise. "Nothing, it's just my phone; I set a ringtone to Fury's number."

Natasha looked over at him with an annoyed expression. "Does Fury not know what a day off means? Why are they bugging us? Though, more importantly, why do you even have your phone?"

"I always have it just in case S.H.I.E.L.D. needs something important from us," Clint shrugged and answered it. "Hello?"

Fury picked up on the other line with a gruff voice as usual. "Barton? Is Romanoff with you?"

"Is that even a question?"

"Just answer the question Barton and _don't _get an attitude with me."

Clint looked over at Natasha with a sheepish look and then back to his phone. "Last time I checked… What do you need sir?"

Clint could feel Fury's icy gaze through the other end of the phone. "She's not answering her phone."

"Well she's with me; I guess she figured that one phone was enough." Natasha walked over to Clint and sat down pulling him with her.

"Look," Fury's tone started getting agitated at the fact that it was clear that Clint was annoyed, "We need you guys to come to the conference hall. The Avengers are having a meeting, and you two have a mandatory invitation. Be there in five minutes." Fury hung up leaving Clint with no room to object. Clint slammed the phone closed in agitation.

"What did Fury want?" Natasha asked picking up on Clint's agitation.

"Avengers are having a meeting so we have to go meet up with everyone." Clint replied throwing on his jacket and handing Natasha's to her. Natasha handed Clint his bow who in turn slung it over his chest.

"Oh, don't worry; I'm sure if _everyone _is having a meeting then it's pretty important." Natasha consoled rubbing Clint's back.

"No, but it's like you said, doesn't S.H.I.E.L.D. know what a day off means?" Clint walked out of the room with Natasha following close behind.

;)

Natasha and Clint were the last to arrive with all of the other Avengers including Thor already seated at the table. Clint took his bow off from around his shoulders and slung it onto the glass topped table. The room hushed at the clatter while Natasha and Clint sat down awkwardly. Fury looked over at the two with a scowl on his face.

"Agent Barton! Would you please be so kind as to not break this table? Keep in mind that the money will come out of _your _paycheck." Fury growled.

Bruce, who was sitting next to Natasha, looked over at her with a smirk. "The Hawk teaching you to shoot?" He nodded to the archery glove she still wore on her fingers. Natasha mumbled incoherently to herself as she fumbled to take it off. Putting it on had proved to be the easy part evidently. Clint reached over and took her hand undoing the clasps. He took the glove once it was off of her and put it in his Jacket pocket.

"It would behoove you all to know that I was not the one who set up this meeting." Fury spoke.

"Well who was it then?" Tony asked from across the table.

A deep voice sounded from the center of the table. "It was I."

"So _you're _the one who interrupted my day off then Point Break?" Tony mused.

Thor stood up so that he was towering at least three feet over everyone sitting down. "The weapons vault in the palace on Asgard has seen outside disturbances."

"And _how _does that concern us? It's on your planet, don't you have your own warriors to deal with that kind of thing?" Tony asked.

Thor ignored Tony and continued on. "The only thing though, is that things are being stolen and transported here, to Midguard."

Steve shifted in his seat uncomfortably and Bruce scratched his head a bit nervously.

"What kinds of weapons?" Steve spoke for the first time.

"Petty weapons, but we have a feeling that the intruders are trying for something much larger. Something called the Infinity Gauntlet."

Bruce stood from the table and without another word he exited to the lab he was always welcome to whenever he boarded the Helicarrier.

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**Author's notes: **Thank you for taking your time to read this chapter. If you have any suggestions or things to my writing or this story better, please don't hesitate to comment on this story. Thanks!


	4. Chapter 4: Attitudes

**Author's notes: **_Thanks SO much for the feedback from the previous chapters. The amazing feedback makes writing this story so much fun. I'm working on getting these characters more "in-character", so bare with me if they aren't quite there yet, which I know they're not._

_Also, know that the facts given about the Infinity Gauntlet ARE NOT CANNON. They are completely made up, though I'm trying to get some details right a little later on. _

_Marvel owns all of the characters you see in this story, no matter how much I would love to, I don't own them._

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Bruce stood from the table and without another word he exited to the lab he was always welcome to whenever he boarded the Helicarrier. Everyone could tell that he was unnerved by the object Thor was calling the Infinity Gauntlet. Natasha sat there mystified by Bruce's reaction. She didn't even know what the Infinity Gauntlet did, but if it had scared Bruce off it must be pretty bad.

"So….what? We can't all exactly go to Asgard and protect it, what do you want us for?" Natasha piped up.

Fury interrupted before Thor could speak again. Clearly Fury already knew about the Infinity Gauntlet, because he already had a plan of action. "New Mexico, that's where you all are headed to; an abnormal amount of extra -terrestrial activity has been going on a few miles from the S.H.I.E.L.D. base stationed out there."

"Wait a minute," Tony interrupted. "Since when does S.H.I.E.L.D. have a base in the middle of the desert stationed in New Mexico?"

"After Thor's hammer crash landed last year, the makeshift base that was already there was turned into a permanent base," Clint shrugged as if it were common knowledge. "Besides, that's where a lot of Asgard entities come to Earth." Clint leaned back in his chair. Natasha looked at him fiercely mouthing for him to sit up, which made him correct his posture rather quickly. No one seemed to pay attention to that small fact though.

Fury walked over to his dual monitors a few feet from the table on the Helicarrier Bridge and pulled up a window absentmindedly. "Agent Barton extended his mission to help supervise the move from a makeshift to permanent structure last year." He moved away from his previous topic as he looked at the screen once more. "You all have three hours to collect your belongings and be up at the top deck ready to board the Quinjet on your way to New Mexico. Oh, and someone go let Banner know his duties, and if he does that again in a meeting, I'll throw him out the bottom of the carrier." Fury picked up his keys from the table and exited the Bridge, most likely heading back to his office.

Clint reached across the table to where his bow had skidded to a halt after his dramatic entrance. It appeared that there was a chip in the glass from where one of the bolts had slammed against the surface. He made a small 'yikes' face as he slung the bow across his chest and ushered Natasha out of the room rather quickly. "What-what are you doing?" She asked when they crossed the threshold into the hallway.

"I may or may not have chipped the glass, but no one has to know." She made an accusing face as she walked back to the room with Clint following close behind. "He'll never know."

;)

After the meeting was over, Tony approached Steve. "Hey, I'll go get the big guy, fill him in on the new developments." Steve gave him a nod and walked back to his room to gather his things.

Tony had no trouble at all predicting where Bruce would be. Whenever he got upset or unhinged, he automatically gravitated towards the lab. Tony knocked on the door once and entered as Bruce looked up from a monitor. "Hey, why'd you run off like that? Fury said if you do that again he's gonna throw you off the Helicarrier." Bruce scoffed and continued to scroll past articles on the monitors. "No, like _legit throw _you off the carrier." Tony walked over to the adjacent monitor and clicked a few buttons waking it out of its sleep.

"Did he now?"

"Umm yes, that's what I just said." Tony pulled up Bruce's screen onto his monitor and flipped through some of the articles. "So this _Infinity Gauntlet _thing is a little _strange_. There are a _lot _of articles on it." Tony chimed sarcastically. "Do you know what it is?"

"I've read a few things on it: tested its power…nothing major." Bruce stated nonchalant.

Tony almost choked on the water he was swallowing and now struggled for air. "Did you say that you came in _contact _with it?"

"A while ago, I found it and ran some tests on it; the power that thing held was scary. Then one day, I came into work ready to test an idea I had just come up with, but it had vanished. No one had gone in my lab because I was the only one with keys, and the door was still locked when I came in that day. It vanished…gone…without a trace. Whoever or _whatever _had snatched the thing from my lab had vanished without a trace. I was crushed, but at the same time, it was like a burden was lifted off of my shoulders. Now whoever is messing with it over in Asgard might be the same thing that took it from me… I'm not too eager to go and find that thing, especially if it's in Asgard that means that it was an alien that took it from me last time. _No _thanks." He walked over to another monitor and checked the location of an object on screen.

"Look Banner, we need the Hulk, and so does the rest of the human race. We have to stick together, we're science bros dude," Tony patted Bruce's shoulder and began to walk out of the room. "I'm sure whoever stole the Gauntlet thing from you wasn't an alien. Besides, we aren't dealing with the Gauntlet right now," He tossed Banner's jacket at him that he had left at the meeting. "Jet leaves for New Mexico in three hours. Be up on deck or risk getting thrown off –_literally_ – Fury's wrath." Tony exited the lab and went to his room to pack some clothes for the few days they were going to be away.

;)

When Natasha felt like they were far enough from listening ears, she turned on Clint causing him to stop abruptly. "_What _was that in the conference room?" She asked sternly.

"What do you mean?" he asked confused.

"You were acting like a _child!_" she hissed. If looks could kill Clint Barton would be long dead by now.

"I'm sorry if I was a little pissed-"

"No, that show wasn't you acting a 'little' pissed. You were practically spitting fire. Like seriously? Who _throws _their weapon on to a conference table with enough force to chip the fricken glass!" Natasha was practically spitting fire herself now as she fought with Clint.

"Is it too much to ask for one fricken day off to spend with you? To have no S.H.I.E.L.D. interference?" Clint was making no effort to keep his voice down, and if there had been people behind the doors lining the hallway, they would have either put their heads out by now, or were just listening behind closed doors.

Natasha looked taken aback at his outright wish to spend the whole day with her with no interruption. She tried to compose herself but it was clear to her that Clint had registered her facial expression. "Well, in our line of work, one completely free day from work is practically impossible." She turned to go into her room but Clint caught her hand first.

"Tasha, I'm sorry for acting like I did…" He seemed to have calmed down tenfold and seemed sincere in his apology.

Turning around to look him in the eyes, she tried not to cave. "I believe you, but I have to pack. I'll see you up on deck in a little while." She shook free of Clint's grip and opened the door to her room and slipped inside leaving Clint standing alone outside with a closed door in front of him.

:0

Picking out a few outfits wasn't incredibly hard. She pulled a medium sized duffle from her closet and stuffed her toiletries, and the aforementioned clothes she picked out. Behind a small hatch in the back of her closet, she pulled out her suit. Slipping it on had always proved to have some degree of difficulty, although her boots and gloves went on easier most of the time. After having the three fingered archery glove on for a small portion of the day, the fingertip less black gloves she wore now felt like home. She wasn't used to only three full length fingertips, but that was understandable.

Grabbing her jacket and bag off the bed, she swung open the door and wasn't surprised at all to see that Clint wasn't still standing there. She sighed remembering the past hour's events. She walked past his room on the way to the armory and couldn't help but sneak a peek into Clint's room. After all, she had a key to his room as he had a key to hers as well. When he wasn't there, she closed the door quietly and continued on to the armory to collect her guns and knives. When she made her way to the armory though, Clint didn't appear to be there either, so instead she just went to the workbench to gather a few knives.

"Maybe he's in his room packing." Natasha jumped as Steve spoke up from the shadows. She hadn't seen him surprisingly, and when she turned around he was already walking towards her.

Even though she knew well of whom Steve was talking about, she questioned him. "Who might be in their room packing?"

Steve looked at her as if she were born yesterday. "Natasha, really? Your innocent lovers act isn't working." Natasha turned back around and began stocking her belt once more. When she was done she turned towards Steve who was sitting on the workbench next to her.

Natasha was about to go back to Clint's room to check if he had come back when she remembered where he always went if he felt lousy. "No…he's not in his room. I know _just _where he is." Natasha left without giving Steve a chance to converse any more.

"Where!" He managed to shout after Natasha.

Natasha was just pushing through the doors when she yelled back. "Where else? The archery range!" She jogged down the hallway turning corners and trying not to run into any personnel.

The big black doors of the range loomed as she got closer, and seeing him in there she quickly took the stairs she always took up to the rafters. Slipping through the upstairs doors, she swung herself up onto one of the rafters and sat watching him. Five minutes went by of watching hit bull's eye after bull's eye. When he emptied half of his quiver he reached for another arrow, but before he shot it he spoke loud enough for her to hear. "You aren't fooling anyone Tasha. I already told you that I can see you up there." He released his arrow and it hit it dead center.

"Don't you ever get tired of being a show off?" She complained as she swung down onto solid ground.

"Nope." Another arrow smacked the target.

"Look, I'm sorry about earlier." She tried as she hit ground level.

"I'm the one who should be sorry. I acted like a child earlier." He didn't shoot another arrow, but instead he put down his bow and went to retrieve his arrows.

Angry at the fact that Clint was using her own words against her, she reached down and clicked the red button that ignited his trick arrows, but Clint was smart, he knew better than to fire any trick arrows into a simple target. Instead of igniting a trick arrow, one was clicked into place in his quiver still on his back, no doubt making him feel the click.

Clint turned around and looked at Natasha. "Really Tash? I said I was sorry, I was agreeing with you." Natasha had a sheepish look on her face as Clint made his way back. He loaded all of his arrows back into his quiver and picked up his bow. "I'm sorry, I really am. Besides, even though we don't get to relax in the comfort of the Helicarrier, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a super-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. mission." He pulled Natasha into a hug and stood there for a moment before an announcement came over the P.A. system.

"Those members of S.H.I.E.L.D. that are scheduled to leave on the Quinjet at 1:00 PM, please report to the flight deck, again, those members of S.H.I.E.L.D. that are scheduled to leave on the Quinjet at 1:00 PM, please report to the flight deck. Thank you." The voice sounded off and Clint and Natasha broke apart.

"Time to go." Clint whispered.

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**Author's notes:** _This chapter was really fun to write with all of the fighting and bromance stuff. _

_If you liked this story, or if you have any suggestions on something I should add, or change, you can click the little review button and add your thoughts._


	5. Chapter 5: Attack

**Author's notes:**_**Wow, thanks so much for favoriting and signing up for alerts on this story.**_

_**I'm not sure how well this chapter is written. I had a bit of writers block, and I didn't plan this chapter out as much as I have been doing for the others. It might jump around a bit, and stuff, but bare with me.**_

_**I know that practically none of the characters are probably in character this chapter, but oh well. I'm a little too into the story to really try and fix that by now...**_

**_Anyways...here is chapter 5!_**

* * *

The two walk down the hall in silence with only the squeak of a door hinge making any noise. Natasha, who was on Clint's right stopped suddenly. He jerked to a halt and glanced back at her questioning. "Is everything alright Nat?" She didn't say anything but looked up and down the hallway and then moved towards Clint.

She hadn't done something like this before. She hadn't ever been the one to pounce on someone, but now as she covered the short distance between the two of them she reached up the few inches it was to his face and brought it eye level with hers. Without waiting for Clint to question what she was doing she pushed her lips against his. He had to admit that he was a bit surprised, but his body relaxed almost immediately. They stood there grasping each other's lips for an eternity. He was the one to break away first though, and when he did he looked at her for what felt like a long time. Only the ring of Clint's phone broke them out of their reverie.

He looked at the time on his phone and cursed himself under his breath. It was 1:10, and the number that was calling him now was most definitely Fury's.

Cautiously he flipped the phone open mouthed 'Fury' to Natasha's questioning look. Clint was met with the disgruntled voice of Director Fury. "Barton, where the _hell _are you and Romanoff? You were supposed to be here ten minute ago! Don't think we won't leave your sorry asses."

"Sorry Director, we lost track of time. We'll be at the flight deck momentarily, we're almost there now."

Clint could hear Fury on the other line pick up an accusing tone. "I'm _sure _that whatever you two were up to seemed to take precedence, but your one and only mission right now is to get to the fucking flight deck!" Natasha could hear Fury shouting through the speaker of the phone as Clint held it away from his ear.

Clint agreed and hung up his phone and looked at Natasha. "We have to go…_now_. We'll probably be dead when Fury gets ahold of us as well."

Natasha just chuckled as they started walking a little faster trying to get up to the flight deck faster.

* * *

When they finally did end up making their way to the Quinjet everyone was already there, they were clearly the last two to board. Even Bruce, who had run off earlier seemed to be seated in a corner looking at some files in his lap, Tony was in another corner standing up talking to no other than Pepper on his phone, and Thor and Steve were seated talking about the latest things happening with the Infinity Gauntlet and the unknown source that was trying to obtain it.

Fury boarded the plane behind Clint and Natasha and stepped around them. "You two aren't flying today. Take a seat over there." Fury motioned as he rubbed his temples.

From across the room Tony hung up the phone and walked over to Fury. "Look, I don't see why I can't just put on the Iron Man suit and fly there myself. I'd be halfway there by now if Mr. and Mrs. Hawkeye over there were on time." Natasha flipped him the bird in which Tony graciously accepted and waited for Fury's reason on why he couldn't fly.

"You know I can't trust you to go by yourself Stark." Fury crossed his arms and went to the cockpit of the plane. The pilots flipped a couple of switches and the Quinjet began to rumble to life.

Natasha sat down on the bench inside of the plane and looked anywhere but at her fellow teammates who had all heard Stark's jab at Clint and her. The fact shouldn't have bothered her, and it didn't, it was the fact that she looked down on herself for feeling any emotion at her partner in the first place. She had been the one to kiss him on the way to the plane a little while earlier…but then again, he had admitted that he had looked forward to spending the entire day alone with her. She didn't know what to feel, and decided to remain impassive for the time being.

The flight from New York to New Mexico would take around three and a half hours, and the plane was mostly silent. Bruce continued to study the files in his lap while Steve tried unsuccessfully to navigate a 21st century cell phone that Tony had lent to him. Clint sat idly with Natasha at his side, who in the past twenty minutes or so had slowly been leaning her head on his shoulder.

When they stood next to each other, Clint was almost five inches taller than Natasha, but when they would sit down, she was about six inches short of the top of his head. And now as the full weight of her head was resting on him, he mumbled into her ear so that only she was capable of hearing. "Tasha, aren't you worried about Stark and the others? You seemed to be mad at the accusation earlier." Natasha shifted a little in her seat but didn't move her head. Instead a reply that was barely audible escaped her lips. "Fuck them…" Clint couldn't help but laugh at this which made Thor stir from the light sleep he had fallen into.

* * *

Natasha's eyes fluttered closed as she fell asleep to the hum of the plane engine. Clint let her be while his fingers explored hers that had fallen out of the intense arm crossing that had resulted from Tony. Her fingernails were clean and cut whereas his had traces of dirt and were often uneven from his bad habit of picking them when he was nervous.

Approximately forty five minutes later a jolt to the outside of the plane woke them all out of their activities. Natasha's head drooped off of Clint's shoulder giving her that infamous 'kick' in a dream that jolted someone awake. Clint quit playing with her hand automatically and was instantly on high alert.

"What was that?" Asked Steve as he stood up to go to the cockpit.

"Just thunder, go sit back down Rog-" A blast, much stronger than the previous one had struck the plane hitting the tail. The air around them lit up with a flash and Steve was thrown to the floor. His knees struck first making him hiss with pain.

Clint undid his harness and ran to the cockpit. "What the hell was that? An Asgardien?" The pilots didn't answer, but Thor was the one who spoke behind Clint.

"Perhaps not." Clint didn't turn around though, for he was inspecting all of the controls.

"How far are we out from the base?" He demanded.

"A-a half hour, twenty-five minutes at the least. Whatever is hitting us it isn't showing up on radar, and it isn't lightning because there isn't a storm system _or _clouds even near here!" One of the pilots was pressing buttons and trying to receive some kind of conformation on what had just hit them.

Fury came up behind Clint and nudged him to the side. "Out of the way Barton, if I recall correctly, you aren't in charge of this plane." Clint backed away and when back to his seat. Fury was talking to the pilots who in turn nodded their heads. The flipped a switch causing the door at the back to lower allowing for the air from the outside in.

Thor shouted above the wailing of the wind. "I am going to acquire a look and see if I cannot discover the complication." Thor's hammer spun into action as he jumped out of the plane and into the trail of smoke fanning out from the tail.

That's when the bullets started. Bullets, from a plane most likely, penetrated the hull of the plane causing everyone to duck in order the protect themselves. Chaos had quickly ensued, and without thinking, Clint pulled Natasha closer to him.

The right wing burst into flame, the flames being visible from the open back. Smoke threatened to invade the cabin, so the pilots had no choice but to close the back and hope Thor was out there figuring out whoever-or whatever-was shooting at them.

Fury spoke into his ear piece frantically. "Agent Coulson! We've been compromised. We're being shot at and down one engine. Rapidly losing altitude." The gun fire had stopped momentarily, and Clint took it upon himself to act quickly. Natasha tried to force him to sit back down, but quickly caught onto what he was planning to do.

He stood up and grabbed his arrows and bow from above him and pressed the button that was for emergencies only that opened up the back door. Clint could here Fury yelling and threatening him, but Clint ignored him. Taking a tie down strap that held down cargo, he tied one end to his belt loop, and another to the handrail near the opening of the back. Edging his way out, he looked around for any site of a plane in the area. An explosive arrow clicked into place and he knocked it onto his bow string. He pointed it out into the area he saw a disturbance in and let it fly. The arrow struck home and he quickly pushed the button setting it to explode.

The plane rattled as he grabbed hold of the railing and shielded himself from the blast. The shield that the plane had had covering it up vanished, and what was left of the fighter jet plummeted out of the sky.

Clint pulled himself back inside and pushed the button causing the door to close. Natasha helped him up off of the ground where he sank to his knees trying to get clean oxygen into his lungs. Fury was upon them within the minute though and he sent Natasha back to her seat.

Fury had no problem with getting up in someone's face, and he was certainly doing that now. "Listen here Barton; what you just did was uncalled for. You _do not _act on your own orders, you're given them. If you ever pull a stunt like that again you'll be put on indefinite leave. Do you understand me?"

Clint nodded numbly and raised his hand like a child. "Just one question. Whose jet just tried to kill us?"

* * *

**Author's Notes:_I hope this chapter wasn't too awful. Wasn't really sure what to do with it._**

**_Leave me some feedback if you have any suggestions for me to add to the story, or if you think I should change something, if you have any advice for me to improve as a writer, or if you just really liked the story!_**

**_Thanks so much, and I'll see you next chapter!_**


	6. Chapter 6: Innocent Intentions

**Author's Notes**: **_This is kind of like a special treat because I released chapter 5 _just _yesterday. I got really excited for this chapter so I decided to start writing it and it kind of took off from there._**

_**Wow, the feedback and alerts and favorites just boost my day when I publish a new chapter.**_

_**This chapter was actually planned out, so I feel like it flows better.**_

_**Also, I changed the rating to 'T' because there's quite a few curse words being thrown around in this chapter, and I should have put a notice before the last chapter soooo...yeah.**_

_**Listened to "Neon Lights" by Natasha Bedingfield, along with "Shake it Out" by Florence + the Machine, and "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz. To me, they are the best Clintasha songs I've found thus far.**_

_**Anyways, without further ado, I present to you: Chapter 6!**_

* * *

The Quinjet lurched downwards heading towards the dry desert of New Mexico. Clint stumbled as he tried to sit back down in his seat.

"Director Fury, sir!" One of the pilots up from demanded.

Fury trudged over to the cockpit and tried to control himself. "Gentlemen?"

"Sir," One of the pilots began, "We're going to have to make an emergency landing. The Quinjet won't fly the distance with only one working engine and wing. We can try our best to land it as smoothly as possible, but I can't guarantee anything sir."

"Well try better than your best. There is precious cargo on this craft that would do best to get to the base in one piece more or less." The pilot who was speaking nodded his head as they tried to level out the plane. Fury sat in a seat and belted himself in.

Natasha sat with her head pressed against the back of the seat when Clint returned back to his seat. "We seem to be in quite a few plane crashes, you and me…" She tried smiling but he could tell that it was somewhat forced.

Clint looked over at Natasha whose hair wasn't as perfect as he remembered when she had kissed him back in the hallway in the Helicarrier. "You're okay right? No bullets hit you right?" She nodded her head and gripped the sides of the seat.

The plane leveled out just a tad, but they were still heading down. Clint moved his hand on top of hers as if to tell her that they'd be okay, he would protect her. He shot a glance at the front window and noticed that the plane was reaching the ground rapidly. Alarms began to blare in the small cabin flashing red light onto everyone's faces warning of the ground approaching rapidly.

* * *

Natasha had never particularly liked when she was in a plane and it happened to be crashing. The seat dug into her palms as she gripped helplessly at its sides. Clint had placed his hand on top of hers, which filled her heart with a sort of pride for an unknown reason. Then the alarms started going off. She knew the Quinjet gadgets inside and out, and that alarm meant they were less than 200 feet from the ground. At the last moment, the pilots made a last ditch effort to level the plane and even went as far as to pop the wheels out.

A few seconds later the impact of the ground hit them as Natasha clung to the thought that she was going to go to sleep tonight in a S.H.I.E.L.D. bed tonight.

Bruce's files were officially all over the floor of the Quinjet, and Tony's head rolled as he moaned.

The Quinjet came to a slow stop and the back door opened. Steve's seatbelt was off first as he practically ran outside to survey the damage. Natasha fumbled with the clips which Clint helped with and the two grabbed their things off of the shelf above them; if their bags hadn't been strapped down they would have been sliding everywhere.

Outside the Quinjet, the damage looked a lot worse. Half of the right wing was gone, and there were dozens of bullet holes in the hull. It had been a miracle that no one had gotten hit with one. About a quarter-mile away, three black S.H.I.E.L.D. cars came rumbling towards the group. Those must be their way back to base.

Clint offered to take Natasha's bag for her and she reluctantly agreed. She still seemed to be feeling a bit exhausted, and the last thing she wanted to do was argue.

Clint swung the duffle bag onto his shoulder along with everything else that was his, and went to the S.H.I.E.L.D. cars that were pulling up to the group. He walked around to one of the trunks of a car that wasn't being driven by a familiar agent, and threw the bags in but kept his bow and quiver with him.

Natasha did a quick head count and figured that a driver, and three other people-with the exception of one car- would be sharing the remainder of the journey to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base. She walked over the car Clint was standing by and climbed in the back seat, but as Clint was about to crawl in after her, Tony ran up and held out a hand stopping Clint.

"No need to climb in the back Robin Hood." He patted Clint on the shoulder and made his way to get into the car. Clint pulled him out by the neck of his jacket and stood looking at him.

"Knock it off Stark. Whatever the hell you're trying to do, it's not working. If you're gonna ride with us you can sit up front." Tony nodded and broke free of Clint's grasp and slid in the back. He made to slam the door causing Clint to pull his fingers out of the way before they had a chance to be crushed.

Angrily Clint climbed up front and slammed the door shut. He turned in his seat and looked at Stark. "If you try anything you stupid son of a bitch, I _will not _hesitate to make the driver stop and throw you out in the middle of the desert." Clint turned back around and buckled his seatbelt waiting for the driver to get in the car.

Natasha sat with her arms crossed and her feet up in the corner of Clint's chair. They were practically on his shoulder, but he didn't seem to care. Tony looked between the two of them and cleared his throat. "So….you two…sex yet?" Clint breathed a deep sigh while Natasha closed her eyes and rubbed her temples trying to block him out.

Clint unbuckled his seat belt and practically climbed over the back seat. "That's it! You're out. Go find another car to ride in." Clint looked like he was about to strangle Tony but only stopped when Natasha spoke up.

"He's not worth it Clint…just ignore him." She spoke through clenched teeth. The urge to punch him square in the face was overwhelming at the moment, but she refrained.

"Hey," Tony put his hands up in a mock surrender, "I don't mean to invade your little bubbles, and it was just a question. What's so bad with that?"

Natasha pulled her hands away from her temples and opened her eyes. She didn't make eye contact with Tony, but looked straight ahead as she continued to speak through clenched teeth. "_Because, _it's none of your _fucking _business, _that's _why!"

"Clint," Natasha began. It seemed like it was getting harder for her to keep her cool.

He took his eyes off of Tony and looked at her. "Yeah, Nat?"

"Switch seats with me. I might seriously kill him. I'm actually considering it right now."

Tony sighed. "How about Robin Hood and me switch so he can sit back here with you. Sound okay?" Tony opened the door of the car and watched as Clint got out as well. They circled the car and didn't say a word to each other.

Clint opened the door to the backseat and slid in next to Natasha. She took her feet down from the seat in front of her and tucked them underneath herself. Her next move was completely unexpected though. She adjusted herself in the car and laid her head on Clint's lap.

Tony didn't even turn around, but glanced up at the rearview mirror to chance a look at the back seat. "I'm gonna go with a…._yes_ then…"

Natasha kept her eyes closed as she responded back nonchalant. "I'm technically on my day off, and that means I'm entitled to do what I want. Fuck off Stark."

The driver, a random agent from S.H.I.E.L.D. climbed in the car in that moment after finishing up a conversation with Coulson and Fury and started the engine.

* * *

The drive to base took about forty-five minutes by car, and the whole time Natasha lay with her head in Clint's lap. The whole ordeal of flying always made Natasha just a little bit drowsier than a normal day around S.H.I.E.L.D. would.

Tony didn't speak again to Clint or Natasha which was a major blessing. Natasha slept soundlessly in his lap, stirring every so often.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent driving the car tried to make small talk asking about what had happened. Clint replied that someone had shot at the Quinjet and destroyed the right side engine and wing. The agent asked if anyone got hurt, but he didn't reply.

In all truth, Clint didn't know if anyone had gotten hurt. He didn't think anyone did, but for all he knew, Bruce, who was sitting by the right wing, got hit in the midst of all the chaos. He didn't think so, but he wouldn't know for sure until they arrived at base and met up with everyone.

Clint sat moving as little as possible as to not disturb the sleeping Natasha. His hands played with her half-curls that hung around her chin. Up towards her forehead, he noticed a thin scrape and absentmindedly told himself that he would ask her about it later.

The base was visible from up to a half-mile away, and as the car got closer, Clint realized that they had expanded after he left last year. There was a whole new living quarters for the agents that stayed there, and he thought he spotted a gym with vaulted ceilings-most likely two levels like the one on the Helicarrier.

Their car was the first to pull up to the main entrance. The driver got out of the cat, and Tony turned around to face Clint. Natasha was still fast asleep on Clint's lap, and now he contemplated on how he was going to wake her up.

"Hey, look, I'm sorry about earlier. I could care less if only you two were anything…" Tony clasped his hands together as a sign that the two of them were something more than partners.

Clint sighed and looked Tony in the eyes. "Look Stark, nothing is going on so leave it alone."

Tony raised his eyebrows skeptically and glanced down at Natasha accusingly. "Okay, whatever you say man." Tony turned back around and undid his seatbelt. He opened the door and went around the back of the car and popped the trunk. He slung his bag over his shoulder and then headed to the doors of the building.

"Stark, I think we're supposed to wait here!" Clint shouted after Tony, but Tony ignored him and kept walking.

Clint sighed and leaned over and undid Natasha's seatbelt and slid it off of her. He did the same to his and opened his car door. Carefully, he slid one arm under Natasha's legs and the other arm under her neck. Somehow he maneuvered his way out of the car and held her in his arms. Her eyes fluttered open and the ghost of a smile flashed across her features. Smiling, Clint gently placed her feet on the ground and went around to the trunk to get their bags out.

He handed her her bag and she took it graciously. Reaching into the back seat again, Clint picked up his bow and quiver and slung them across his back.

"What was that scratch on your forehead?" Clint motioned to her hairline almost touching her.

"Oh," She felt her head and discovered she really did have a thin cut. "I must have bumped my head accidentally…"

The last two S.H.I.E.L.D. cars pulled up and Agent Coulson along with Director Fury stepped out of their cars. Natasha wondered if they had all had and eventful car ride like Clint and her had. She turned to Clint. "Did Stark say anything the rest of the way back here? Sorry, I fell asleep."

Clint shook his head as Coulson came up to the two of them. "Agents," he nodded his head in greeting and shook their hands. "Where's Stark?"

"He already headed inside. Have you heard from Thor? He left the plane mid battle and went to God only knows where." Clint asked nonchalantly.

"No confirmation as of yet. Did any of you sustain any injuries?" Coulson looked over them both for anything obvious. Natasha was still in her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform from this morning while Clint had a pair of jeans on and a white tee-shirt.

"I'm fine. Nothing that I can tell." Natasha answered firmly.

Clint spoke up as well. "No sir, besides a little oxygen deprivation, I'm fine."

Coulson patted him on the shoulder and turned to walk into the building with the other two agents that were driving.

Fury came to stand in front of everyone and spoke. "There's a debriefing scheduled to take place in the conference room, that's where you all are headed now. _Don't _be late. I'm going to find Stark." Fury left the team without waiting to see if they were following him.

* * *

**Author's notes:****_I hope you liked this chapter because I had a blast writing Tony trying to invade into Clint and Natasha's personal life._**

**_Your reviews and feedback help me as a writer, so don't be afraid to review and tell me what you thought about the chapter. _**


	7. Chapter 7: Broken Fairytales

**Author's Notes: **_**This chapter is the **_**longest _that I have yet to do, and it was going to be longer, but I had to stop myself and end it where it ends here._**

**_There are parts of it where I really liked writing it, and keep in mind that the whole debriefing may be a little hard to follow, I'll touch on that in the coming chapters._**

**_I've come to the conclusion where some of these characters are officially 'out of character', so...I'm sorry, but in order to write what I have planned, the character barrier must be broken. Mild spoilers to those who haven't seen _The Raven _yet. Nothing much though. (I know it's not on paper view, but I figured it might be in like a month or so when this takes place.)_ **

**_Sorry if you wanted a short chapter, but this one is a long one, try not to get lost while reading it. Here's chapter 7:_**

* * *

Walking into the main reception area of the New Mexico base was architecturally the same as when Clint left last time. He hadn't stayed long enough to see furniture put in, but he figured that it worked just fine with what they had placed in here.

Natasha followed him into the building with everyone else and looked around. All of the furniture looked like it was meant for a home, not a top-secret government organization.

The man at the reception desk pointed after the way Fury had gone as everyone caught up. "He went that way, but he told me to tell you all that the conference room you'll all be meeting at is down that hallway, first door on your right."

Steve nodded and headed down the hallway with Bruce following close behind.

Across the room Natasha sat on a chair with her head bowed in her lap. Clint noticed her and crossed the room, kneeling so that he was eye level with her. As he looked closer, he could see that her eyes were closed and she was taking shaky deep breaths.

"Tasha? What's wrong?" Clint sounded concerned as he looked at his partner who herself looked to be distraught.

She looked up at Clint and her face had the effect that she was going to break down at any moment. She took a shaky breath before she answered him. "I don't know what's wrong with me," Clint could see the tears pooling in her eyes. "Am-am I about to crack, to break, to-to _fall _apart like they all talk about?" A tear escaped her eye but Clint reached up and brushed it away.

"What? Who's talking like that?" Clint knew in all honesty that fellow agents of theirs thought that Clint and Natasha were going to crack one day from all the stress and secrets they kept from everyone.

"The agents, other people," She was making no effort to whisper, so Clint figured the receptionist could hear them perfectly. "I've heard people talking, I know you have too. They think we're gonna break open one day. Like, like an egg. Just _crack_. Is it already happening to me?" The tears flowed freely now and Clint realized just how out of herself Natasha really was right now. Natasha never acted like this, but on the off chance she ever did, it was always in the confinements of her own room away from watchful eyes.

Clint took her in an embrace and whispered into her ear comfortably. "You are _not _breaking. Don't listen to those people. You're just having some unknown emotions right now," he pulled away and looked her in the eyes. "You're strong, you'll get through this, okay?" Natasha nodded and attempted to wipe away the fresh tears on her face. The material of her suit clearly wasn't doing much though, so Clint helped her with the aid of his shirt sleeve.

"Besides, we should get to the debriefing room before Fury yells at us yet again today." Natasha let a small laugh escape her lips and pointed at him.

"So he doesn't get mad at _you _again today." She choked out.

Clint chuckled and stood up pulling her with him.

* * *

The conference room looked almost like the one on the Helicarrier. There was a table in the shape of the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo with chairs around it. Steve sat in the middle with Bruce and Thor seated next to him and Tony seated next to Thor. Clint did a double take and realized that Thor and Tony must have found the room on their own.

Clint took a seat next to Bruce and Natasha sat on the end as far from Tony as possible. They had beaten Fury there, who was probably still looking for Tony even though he seemed to be here. Fury would figure out this fact and be in in a few minutes.

Bruce looked over at Clint's shirt sleeve that was still wet from Natasha's tears. "Archery teacher turned human tissue?" Clint knew that Bruce was trying to be friendly, but he just grunted as Fury found his way into the conference room.

As Fury walked into the room, he was followed in by an ominous black cloud. "That's strike number two today Stark."

Tony made an innocent 'what did I do' face. "What did I do?"

Fury looked at him accusingly but just turned back to face the rest of the group.

Bruce spoke up before he should have. "What the hell happened on that plane today?"

Fury directed his attention over at Bruce. "That's what we're still trying to figure out. The craft that attacked the Quinjet was not of S.H.I.E.L.D. origins. We have reason to believe that they may be directly affiliated with the beings trying to tamper with the Infinity Gauntlet, but until that can be determined, it will remain undisclosed. Does anyone else have any news?"

Clint cleared his throat. "The shield that the other craft was using was not unlike the Helicarrier's camouflage that it has for the exterior. Either the craft stole the tech from S.H.I.E.L.D. or they built their own. For all we know, if they did steal the tech from us, than that means there's probably a double agent working around the company considering we haven't had any reports of recent thefts.

Fury looked over at Clint with a murderous glare. "Well then agent Barton, you've better keep a look out for any suspicious activity that includes all of you." Fury looked around at everyone and they nodded their heads.

Tony raised his hand like a child in school. Fury sighed with displeasure. "You're treading on thin ice Mr. Stark. What is it?"

Tony pulled his phone closer to his face and pressed some buttons, then he slid the phone over to Fury. "Actually, back in May, there was reportedly a break in on the lower hanger. It says nothing was stolen though."

Fury looked at the phone confused momentarily. "There were no _reported _robberies, so why is this in the system Stark?"

Bruce spoke up before Tony this time. "Well you see sir, May was a kind of busy month. Agent Barton was compromised," Clint lowered his head and gave an unmistakeable nervous and embarrassed scratch of his head. "the remaining Avengers were called together, and Loki was taken down. It was a busy month. So if that means there was a break in and no one reported it, it would have been the perfect cover up. If asked, they could say in all the chaos they forgot to tell anyone."

"So you're meaning to say that S.H.I.E.L.D. could be dealing with an unknown theft and a double agent stupid enough to report the crime?" Steve sounded skeptical, but in all honesty, he didn't know how Bruce was going to explain this.

"Captain, you see, if we had a double agent working here and he helped orchestrate the theft, if someone found out about it and they confronted the agent on why they didn't tell anyone, more blame is going to be put on that than per say, a robbery at a hectic time which allowed for the obscurity of anyone knowing about it."

Tony seemed to have had enough. When he spoke, he seemed to have an element of annoyance in his voice. "Yeah, but two months past the crime! Even if it was just an honest mistake, or if it was all planned, they could have told Fury after the battle. It's not that hard to talk to him and tell him that there's been a break in. But…I don't know. Just the fact that it _did _happen two months ago and nobody knew about it is a few red flags being thrown out here and there."

"Who was the report filed by? That can be our first step to finding a double agent anyway. Follow the path that he forgot to cover up." Natasha had finally found her voice again and looked in no danger of crying.

Making an 'ah-ha' face, Tony tapped a few buttons and pulled up a screen. "Someone by the name of Agent Patterson Brown," Tony thought for a moment and read on. "It says he has almost top clearance level…so why have I _never _heard of the guy?"

"Agent Brown?" Furry looked utterly confused with a mixture of annoyance thrown in there somewhere. "Agent Brown was terminated last month for insubordination and….. _shit_."

Clint leaned forward in his chair worriedly. "What? What else was he terminated for sir?"

Without looking at Clint alone, Fury talked as if he was genuinely upset and mad at himself. "He was terminated for suspicious activity and insubordination."

Tony choked on the water he was drinking. "_Excuse me? _Fury! You're getting sloppy old man! You fired a guy that was charged on suspicious activity and you didn't think to investigate?"

The table shook as Fury pounded his fist on the glass causing everyone to jump. "There _were _no files Stark! I had some of my best men investigating. He must have encoded the brake in report, dammit…" Fury cursed to himself. "How did you get that report Stark?"

"Like I always do," Tony sounded nonchalant about his answer. "been running a hack since we got here, though I admit that the firewall wasn't as strong here as it was on the Helicarrier."

Trying to be appreciative and not strangle Tony at the same time was hard, but Fury figured that without him hacking the system, they would never have found any record of break in. "Very well. I'm going to find ex-agent Brown and bring him in for questioning. You okay with that Agent Romanoff?" Natasha nodded and Fury reached into the pocket of his coat. He handed each person a key. "These are your room keys for your stay. The room numbers are on the keys and a schedule for where you need to be at what times will be slipped under your doors in the morning. Have a good rest of the day off everybody." Fury left the room, probably headed to go find more info on Patterson Brown.

Picking up the keys to their rooms, Natasha and Clint realized that their rooms were right next to each other.

Thor and Steve were the first to leave along with Natasha and Clint. Tony headed off somewhere, and Bruce probably left in search for a laboratory.

* * *

The hallway with everyone's rooms was one of the main ones off of the main reception lobby, which meant that they had to pass the receptionist again. Natasha secretlt hoped that he wouldn't say anything about earlier as they walked with Steve and Thor. Though, wishing only got you so far in life.

Natasha tried not to make eye contact with the man behind the desk as they came into the lobby. But it was too much to hope for that he wouldn't say anything.

They were all halfway through the lobby when he spoke up. "Are you feeling better miss?" Natasha halted in her step ad did Clint momentarily. Clint tried to pull her along before he said anything else, but she just stood there frozen, unable to move.

Steve and Thor turned and looked at the two of them standing there. "What's he mean 'you feeling better'? Natasha?" Steve asked concerned.

Natasha stammered a bit and looked behind herself at the man behind the desk. He had a ghost of a smirk on his face. "He just means that I wasn't feeling good earlier. I feel fine now though." She turned back around and made a hasty exit with Clint following her along with Steve and Thor.

Steve and Thor dropped off one by one until they came to their rooms. Natasha stuck her key into the lock and shoved open the door with her shoulder. Clint stuck his head into the room and snooped around. Natasha threw her bag onto the bed and looked at Clint.

"Out," She demanded pointing towards the door. "I have to unpack and take a shower. I'll find you when I'm done and decent looking."

Clint smirked and slipped out of the room to go an unlock his door. He walked into his room and slung his bag across the bed.

The room was pretty plain. There was a double-sized bed, a nice sized television atop a dresser for his clothes, and two nightstands on either side of his bed. There was a small bathroom through a door adjacent to the only window in the room.

For the next forty-five minutes, Clint unpacked and took a shower. He was wearing a pair of loose fiiting jeans and a gray short sleeve tee-shirt.

A knock came on his door while he was in the middle of drying his hair. "Who is it?" he called.

A secret little kick in the bottom left of the door let him know that it was Natasha. Whenever one of them needed to get into the other's room, whether it be now or on a mission, they had a secret little kick at the door so that no potentially jeopardizing information like someone's name was given out.

Clint threw his towel onto the bed and made for the door. He swung it open seeing Natasha standing there. She was wearing grey yoga pants and a light blue tanktop. Her hair was still damp revealing that she reallu had taken a shower like she'd said she was going to.

Motioning her to come in, she looked around at everything. "Nice to know S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't favoring one room to another." Natasha mumbled.

"What do you mean?" Clint asked curiously as he closed the door.

"My room has a nice little chair right…"she pointed towards the window near the bed. "there."

Does that make my room any less homey?" Clint sounded offended that his room was less than someone else's.

"Yes." Natasha tried to hold her composure at Clint's act of being offended, but failed at around the thirty second mark. She smiled and stifled a laugh. This was one of the things that she loved about Clint, she could just be herself around him.

Clint sat down on his bed and threw a pillow at her. She laughed as it hit her in the face causing her hair to fly out around her face.

Picking the pillow up off of the floor, she chucked it at Clint who dodged it. "Pfff…_weak."_ Natasha was having trouble stifling her giggles as they threatened to escape into full blown laughter.

She stumbled to the bed and picked up a pillow that had been lying on Clint's bed. She smacked him in the face with it causing him to make an 'oof' sound. Natasha looked at Clint who was lying on his bed looking up at the ceiling laughing.

Natasha plopped herself onto the bed lying next to him. Clint continued to stare up at the ceiling calming down while Natasha gazed over at him. After about a minute, Clint looked over at her and smiled.

There was a certain thing about Clint that Natasha just thrived for. It might have been the way his bright blue eyes sparkled, or his amazing smile, or maybe it was just the fact that she could be herself around him.

"You feel the face you're making right now?"

Natasha sat up still looking at Clint. "What do you mean?"

Clint sat up and looked back at Natasha. "_That's _the face of someone that's strong, someone who has everything under control."

The smile on Natasha's lips faded slightly. "That's only 'cause I've got you. Without you I'd be lost." Clint reached over and squeezed Natasha's hand reassuringly.

"You'll always have me, I'll always be there."

Natasha pulled her hand away abruptly and looked down. "But you don't get it. I don't believe in fairy tales. I don't get a knight in shining armor to come and whisk me away and protect me…" Natasha felt gentle fingers on her chin tilt her head up. Her eyes followed and saw Clint looking down at her with sad eyes.

"That's not really your decision is it now? If someone wants to be there for you and be your 'knight in shining armor', then they're going to do just that. You can't—'' A sudden knock at the door stopped Clint short. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath clearing his mind.

"Who is it?" he called slightly annoyed.

"Well, uh… that would depend…who do you hate less right now? Tony or Iron Man?" Tony called from the other side of the door.

Natasha made a grunting sound and fell back on the bed. Clint's annoyance grew as he moved closer to the door.

Opening the door only so far that Clint could stick his head out, he looked at Tony. "What do you want? I was about to go to lie down."

"It's only four o'clock here."

"Seven o'clock, our time." Clint replied. All he wanted was for Tony to leave him alone. Natasha and him had been having a serious conversation and Tony had ruined things for the third time that day.

"Look, the point _is, _it's too early to _lie _down."

"Ever heard of jet lag Stark?" Clint made to close the door but Tony stuck his foot over the threshold preventing it.

"Yes, and it isn't a justifiable enough excuse." Tony pushed into Clint's room despite Clint's tries to get him back out.

Finally Tony was too far into the room to be pushed out. He took a look around and saw Natasha lying on the bed. He raised his eyebrows and looked over at Clint.

"We were _talking._" Clint spat at him.

"About what, may I ask?" Tony shot back amused.

Natasha sat up. "About how _amazing _your mother is in bed."

"And you would know wouldn't you?" He directed back at Natasha. Tony never was one to take a joke and leave it hanging in the air.

Natasha made a grossed out face while Tony just smirked.

"Look, Tony, what do you need?" Asked an exasperated Clint.

"OH! Nothing. I was snooping around. I'm actually headed to the lab right now to go blow some things up; happy coincidence that you two just happened to be in here together and cause some excitement for me though. Everything is just so….what's the word…._dull _here. You know what I mean?" Clint and Natasha just looked at him dumbfounded.

Tony made for the door opened it. "See you then?" Clint asked trying to be somewhat friendly. Tony closed the door not responding to Clint's farewell.

Natasha sighed and stood up. "I heard S.H.I.E.L.D. televisions have practically _every _movie channel. Want to see if anything is on?" Natasha offered. She pulled back the sheets on Clint's bed and crawled in.

Clint's face lit up for the first time since Tony had entered the room. He crawled beneath the sheets and laid next to her. He playfully grabbed the remote from Natasha and turned the TV on.

It was true, S.H.I.E.L.D. practically did have all the movie channels, and as they flipped through them they finally landed on _The Raven_ with John Cusack. It was currently on paper view, but they decided to pay for it. Worst came to worst they would pay S.H.I.E.L.D. the six dollars it took to rent it.

The movie turned out to be mildly thrilling with Edgar Allen Poe having to figure his way through murders that dealt with his poems. Every once in a while a poem that Natasha knew was mentioned like _The Telltale Heart _or _The Cask of Amontillado_. She would become slightly giddy as the killer played out the dark poem and how Edgar and the police detectives would respond to it. At one point they even mentioned Natasha's favorite poem of all time _Annabel Lee._ Clint could feel her practically melt when Poe recited it.

Three quarters through the movie though, the two of them started to doze off. Before he knew it, it was morning and Natasha was curled up leaning into his chest. He didn't make any move to stop her though. Instead, he gently kissed her on top of her head and drifted back off to sleep.

* * *

**Author's notes: _So I feel like it was really long-which it was-but I don't feel like it was that bad of a chapter. The next chapter will have more action in it, I promise._**

**_I actually went to go see_ The Raven _this past weekend, and while it was kind of gory and dark, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Natasha's reactions to the poems were my exact reactions when they were mentioned so I decided to add them in. The ending did surprise me though..._**

**_Anyways, thank you for taking your time to read this chapter, and if you have any suggestions, or help, or if you just really liked the chapter PLEASE don't hesitate to review. Thanks!_**


	8. Chapter 8: Monsters and Magic

**Author's Notes:****_Oh my...I'm so sorry for not updating sooner, I have had family over like all week so I barely have time to get to my computer and type anything up._**

**_This chapter is significantly shorter than the last one, but oh well... I hope you like this, things are starting to happen.._**

**_Here's chapter 8!_**

* * *

Slowly Natasha opened her eyes. She felt cozy, a warm presence pulling her close. Natasha nuzzled into the human shaped wall lying next to her. A strong arm wrapped around her protectively letting her nuzzle closer to him.

She absentmindedly felt the soft feel of Clint's lips on the top of her head. She moved her head up to look at him smiling. "Hey you…" he smiled at her. "Did you end up staying up till the end of the movie?"

Natasha thought for a moment. "No! Do you know who kidnapped Emily? Did they ever get her back?"

"Umm..." Clint picked up his phone and punched the questions into Google. "It was the newspaper printer's assistant who kidnapped Emily, and in the end, Emily lived and Edgar poisoned himself in order to save his love."

"Aww!" Natasha snuggled into Clint's abdomen. "If that ever happened to me would you kill yourself for me?"

Clint thought for a second before answering her. "I wouldn't have to; I'd get you back and then kill the people that took you." Natasha smiled and looked up at him.

The door knocked, causing Clint to pull his arm from around Natasha. He got up and walked to the door and picked up the schedule that was slipped under his door. "I have training at 12:30 after Lunch. Any idea about yours?"

Natasha crawled out of bed and sat on the edge. "I should probably go and look shouldn't I?" She stood up and walked to the door. "Thank you for being my knight."

At that moment, nothing else seemed to exist in the world except for Clint and Natasha. There was no S.H.I.E.L.D. and no schedules, just the two of them.

Clint walked the few feet to her and bent a little so he was at her height. He grasped her face between his hands and delicately placed his lips against hers. She tensed but relaxed almost instantly. She pulled away and looked at him lovingly.

"I figured it was my turn to return the favor." Clint replied fondly.

"Where does this put us then?" Natasha asked opening the door slightly.

"It's complicated." Clint gave her a lingering kiss as she slipped out of the door smiling.

* * *

As Natasha unlocked the door to her room, she went and sat on her bed and thought about what had just happened. Sure, she had kissed him first yesterday, but she had then shoved those feelings away. Between now and then, she had done things that made her question those feelings again. She trusted Clint with more than her life, and last night she had fallen asleep in his bed with Clint wrapped around her. The thing she hated most about it was that she had enjoyed every minute of it. She loved the idea of Clint as something more than a partner or a friend.

Sighing, she picked up the schedule from her floor. It read that she had training starting at 1:30 in the same gym that Clint had training at starting at 12:30. She walked over to her dresser and pulled out a pair of black Nike gym shorts and a green sport tank top. Natasha slipped into her newly planned outfit and pulled her hair into a small pony tail.

Looking at the clock on her dresser, she realized that it was ten-thirty. In order to pass some time, she headed to the rood in a desperate attempt to clear her mind.

The halls were mostly deserted because most of the agents that worked there were either in meetings or their offices.

In the corner of the main building was a stairwell that Natasha climbed the two flights to the service door. She pushed open the heavy metal door and blinked as the sun filtered into the stairwell. Stepping over the threshold outside, she walked over to the ledge and sat down crossing her legs. The horizon to her east was still being dominated by the rising sun.

Natasha lay down on the warming cement and dozed off for about an hour. It was a dreamless sleep, but she figured it was better than a nightmare.

* * *

When Natasha woke up it was about 11:30. She sat up feeling the gravel imprints on her back. She looked around herself and saw darkening clouds. The wind had started to pick up blowing the loose strands of her hair around her face. She looked down off of the ledge of the rood and saw that the small bushes around the front looked close to ripping up from the ground.

Slowly Natasha stood up and backed a little ways away from the edge. Out of the corner of her eye Natasha saw a funnel drop to the ground rapidly, but it wasn't a twister funnel. A funnel that was the same width came and left in less than two minutes. When is disappeared, a person in battle garb was left standing there.

Natasha strained her eyes to make sure that it wasn't somehow Loki. She was right, it wasn't. The figure advanced towards the S.H.I.E.L.D. base causing Natasha to stumble backwards racing back towards the roof door.

Rapidly jumping down the two flights of stairs, she ran in the direction of Fury's office. Everything seemed to be the same still, and she wondered if anyone had seen the figure yet.

She passed the gym and was running up past the team's row or rooms when she slammed into a solid mass of human. She fell to the ground and tried to collect her senses. Rubbing her head she looked up and was surprised to see Clint in his training gear heading towards the gym. Words fumbled to come out of her mouth and tell him what was happening.

"There-there's a- a _thing _that just came out of a funnel outside! An Asgardien I presume- but they're heading towards the base. I- I was on my way to tell Fury." Natasha stumbled to her feet as did Clint.

"Are you okay? That's what matters."

"Oh…um yeah, I'm fine. I should have been looking where I was going more carefully." She started to walk in the way she had been going and Clint followed her. She looked back at him with a questioning look.

"I'm coming with. You told me what was going on, so that associates with me now. I'm here to help." Natasha rolled her eyes and continued as fast as her legs would take her to Fury's office.

When the two agents arrived at Fury's office, they found it to be disturbingly empty. "_Shit."_

Fury walked up behind the two and cleared his throat. "Trouble Agent Romanoff?"

Natasha and Clint spun around to look at Fury. "Sir, there's an unknown presence making its way towards the S.H.I.E.L.D. base as we speak. Natasha thinks that it may be of Asgardien descent. There's no way to be sure unless we take a closer look."

Fury nodded and motioned them to continue. "And where was this presence spotted?"

"The roof sir, off to the east." Natasha spoke.

"Well then, lead the way."

* * *

The three of them were led by Natasha back to where she had come from, and arrived at the spot where she had been asleep for a little while. Looking out to where she had spotted the figure before, she noticed that the thing was a little more than halfway to the base. Fury pulled out his walkie-talkie and spoke urgently through it. "Agent Coulson? This is Director Fury. We have a code seven-unknown alien presence coming close to the base. Take all precautions and necessary steps to stop the being in its tracks. Copy."

The line buzzed and a simple 'Copy' was replied back. A few seconds later an alarm sounded.

Clint turned towards Fury and spoke loudly so that he could hear over the blaring alarm. "Sir! Would you like me to slow them down? I can try!" Clint motioned to his bow and quiver and Fury gave a curt nod.

"Do what it takes Agent Barton; just _do not _kill the thing. We need it alive, you can shoot it anywhere but the vital spots! Take aim and fire agent!"

Natasha backed up as Clint unloaded an arrow and nocked it into his bow. He turned like he had instructed Natasha to and took aim. Natasha could see him breathe in and out for a second and then released the arrow grunting a bit. He held his stance until the arrow hit its mark. The figure in battle gear fell to the ground as troops from the base filed out from the doors.

Fury snapped Clint's attention back at him and the situation at hand. "Agent Barton, where did you shoot the figure?"

The alarms were quieter now as Clint relaxed his stance. "Nowhere vital."

* * *

**Author's notes:**_**So next chapter deals with an interrogation maybe...oooohhh**_

_**I hope you liked this chapter! Remember that each time you review helps me as a writer and helps the story along just a little bit more!**_

_**Thanks!**_


	9. Chapter 9: May Fear Consume You

**Author's Notes: **_**So recently I've noticed that this is post-Avenger's movie right? Well um...Coulson was inadvertently included as living in this fic...whoops... oh well. AU much?**_

_**Anyways, this chapter was exciting to right. There's some Clintasha angst and a bit of fluff towards the end-but is it enough action to classify as 'fluff'? I don't know. Oh well.**_

_**I had formed a sketch of the villain mentioned, and still working on the details for those of your curious.**_

_**Anyways...enjoy! **_

* * *

She could be described as a blonde vixen. The woman sitting in the fortified interrogation room could be described as looking like a supermodel. Only if someone got up close and personal could you figure out that she had other worldly qualities.

Natasha and Clint walked up to the two-way glass. Clint was dressed in his standard S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform and Natasha was dressed similarly. Natasha had her guns in their respective holsters and Clint had his bow around his back as usual with a small quiver.

Looking into the glass Natasha could see the portion of the woman's chest that was bandaged from Clint's arrow earlier. She seemed to have a smug look on her face which put the two of them on edge. Natasha turned to Clint with a fake smile. "Bit like déjà vu…"

Clint looked at her questioningly. He racked his brain but couldn't figure out a time that was even similar to the two of them interrogating an alien. "Umm…I'm lost. What do you mean?"

"When you weren't with us and Loki was all caged up, I came and interrogated him indirectly. So I guess maybe this is more déjà vu for me than you." Clint nodded his head in mock understanding as Fury walked up to them.

"Agent Romanoff, you're going to go and interrogate the prisoner. Agent Barton, you'll stay out here and make sure nothing goes wrong." Natasha nodded in understanding. Clint looked over at Fury with a glare in his eyes.

"Sir, if something happens while Natasha is in there, it would be futile for me to be out here. I wouldn't be able to get to her fast enough from out here." Natasha could see Clint trying to persuade his way into the room with her.

Fury looked at him with an irritated expression. "Agent Barton, just because you and Agent Romanoff may or may not have something going on doesn't mean that you have to be any more protective; though I understand your concern. Agent Romanoff knows what she's doing, she'll be fine."

Natasha's steely expression cracked at Fury's apparent notice to what the two of them were up to. Clint seemed to be just as surprised considering he was at a loss for words. "Sir…" Natasha began trying to explain that nothing was going on.

"Agent Romanoff, there _are _camera's in the rooms, not to mention eye witness reports. I could care less about your personal lives as long as they don't invade your professional ones." A guard came out of the room and nodded to Fury. "Romanoff, you're up. Don't disappoint."

* * *

Clint had to admit that he was worried for Natasha. She was going into an interrogation room with an alien from another world with little more than a hand gun. There was something askew with the woman sitting at the table, not to mention that she had an unmistakable smile on her lips when Natasha entered the room. It was enough for Clint to want to barge into the room and shoot her with an arrow to her heart.

* * *

Natasha walked into the room with the prisoner and sat down at the chair directly across from her. She woman had long flaxen colored hair with the front portion curled slightly and the back portions bone straight. She wore a gold band underneath her hair, visible on her forehead.

She wore a long simple lavender dress with black high heeled boots on underneath. Her nails were long, and as Natasha looked over her, she realized that this person looked more like they belonged in medieval England than the 21st century attempting to break into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base.

Though, she did have other-worldly qualities. The suddenness of her electric blue eyes sent chills down Natasha's back. That blue was the same color that Clint's had been while he was under Loki's control. Her ears seemed to end in a point much like an elf's, and her skin was almost translucent. She had a glint of evil about her which Natasha treaded with caution. She preferred not to have another sort of Loki on their hands.

Natasha spoke first in a hard and steely voice. "What's your name?"

"Oh, I bet you'd _love _to know that wouldn't you?" The prisoner responded back snidely.

Natasha stood and smiled trying to hide her annoyed façade. "Well, as long as we're being friendly…my name is Natalie."

The girl looked up at her with a smile on her face. "Liar. I know your name Natalia Alinova Romanova – or should I pronounce it the more 'American' way? Natasha Romanoff?"

Natasha took a deep breath hiding her concern. She pushed it down as far as it would go and continued on. This time she cut to the chase. All of her years of interrogation training left as she scolded the woman in front of her. "Alright, I was going to try and be nice, but you're making that _extremely _hard. I was having a pretty nice morning until you interrupted it. So why don't you tell me your name?"

"My name….my name is Deimos."

* * *

Clint had tensed when the woman Natasha was interrogating had called her a liar and then proceeded to tell Natasha her real name. But now Natasha was getting personal. Clint could hear through the microphone in the room as the woman told Natasha her name.

Deimos sounded familiar to Clint. He turned towards the computer tech next to him and told him to type it into Google. The result wouldn't come quick enough though. Deimos began to speak again causing Clint to turn back around and listen intently.

* * *

Deimos stood up and looked Natasha in the eyes. It might have been just Natasha's imagination, but she could have sworn that Deimos's eyes had just glowed brighter blue. "_Natalia Alinova Romanova_." The words were like ice out of her mouth causing Natasha to practically freeze where she was.

That's when everything came tumbling downhill at ninety miles an hour. A vision, so vivid and fierce, invaded her conciseness. A vision of Clint killing her slowly in the worst way she could imagine. She let out a strangled cry and sunk to her knees. She could feel blow for blow as he killed her in her mind. Another person entered her mind with Clint and this time it was Dreykov. Dreykov had been the one that helped mold her into the ruthless killing machine she was now. Dreykov then proceeded to walk over to Clint with Loki apparently tailing behind him, and stabbed Clint through the chest. Clint's eyes cleared and he let out a thin gasp as the knife was pulled from his body. Loki walked up behind him and snapped his neck – all of the life gone from Clint's eyes in a millisecond.

Natasha tried to scream but nothing came out of her mouth. Dreykov came to stand above her with Loki and stared down at her laughing. She sunk to the ground further and surrendered herself to her fears. Reality and her mind seemed to be fusing together and if these two men were going to kill her she wanted it to be quick, but she knew deep in her mind that something like this would _never _be quick.

* * *

As soon as Natasha let out the strangled cry, Clint was out of the room. He ran out and around to the door leading into the main area where Natasha and Deimos were. Clint tried his key card and found that it wasn't working. He looked up to see Deimos standing over Natasha's crippled body. Her eyes were clasped shut and tears were rolling down her face. Clint banged on the door. "Natasha!"

Fury ran up behind Clint and tried to unlock the door. Clint was getting all choked up as he watched Natasha. Deimos's mouth was moving but he couldn't understand what she was saying. "Hurry goddammit!" Clint tried to push down his agony and tears that were threatening to overcome him.

Finally Fury managed to bust the door open. Clint knocked an arrow and burst into the room shooting it into the lower left side of Deimos's ribs. She howled in pain as she fell to the floor, the blue sparks in her eyes fading.

Clint ran over to Natasha's crumpled body lying on the floor. He brushed the hair out of her eyes and rubbed her cheek. "Natasha? Natasha please wake up." There were tear streaks all over her face and her hair was matted with sweat. Clint could see that Natasha was still silently crying but was unconscious from the world.

Across the room, Fury was directing medics to take Deimos to a separate medical wing and take every precaution that was possible. They were under strict orders to keep her alive.

The tech that had been in the room with Clint who had looked up Deimos came up to him with a paper. Clint stood up and looked away from Natasha momentarily. "Um, Agent Barton, the search completed. It says that Deimos is the god/goddess of fear and terror. The being projects its enemy's greatest fears into their mind compromising them physically and mentally. It seems that Agent Romanoff was the subject of Deimos's most recent attack. I'm sorry sir." The tech looked down at his papers and walked away.

Clint wondered why the tech would be sorry – as if he could have prevented it. He looked back at Natasha and saw her being picked up by the medical team. Clint walked over to them and started to shove them away. "No, there's no need to take her to the medical wing. She's fine; I'll take her back to her room." He tried to take her but the medical team tried to protest.

"Agent, she's been the subject to an extraterrestrial attack, she needs to be taken in for examination." Clint stiffened at the thought of Natasha lying hooked up to IVs.

Clint knew how much Natasha disliked the thought of hospitals. She never liked them even when she was seriously injured. If Clint could help it, she wasn't going to end up in one for something like this. She needed to wake up to a friend who could explain things. "I'll _handle it." _He stated more firmly. The medical team backed away and Clint walked over to her scooping her up bridal style.

Fury walked over to him blocking his exit. "I'm afraid you don't have the jurisdiction to determine what is good for and what isn't for Agent Romanoff."

"I don't have to have the jurisdiction to make that call sir. I know just what she needs, and that isn't waking up in a hospital bed with no one to explain things. I'm going to take her to her room and wait till she wakes up."

Fury shifted his weight between his feet. "Can't you do that in the safety of a hospital room?"

Clint started to walk towards Fury who moved out of the way reluctantly. "Not with Deimos in the vicinity sir."

* * *

As Clint walked back to her room, he received a few strange looks from people passing in the hallways. Evidently everyone had not heard about what happened with Deimos yet. He fished Natasha's key out of her hip pocket and unlocked her door. He had been in her room the night before, and it looked the same. Her bed was still made considering she hadn't slept in it, and her duffle bag was in the corner emptied.

He lowered her gently onto the mattress with her head against a pillow. He walked a little ways away and started pacing. His mind raced with the past events from the day. A goddess – most likely an Asgardien – had pronounced themselves onto Earth. They were armed and dangerous. Natasha, being the one to jump into the situation head first now paid the price. Clint could only imagine what fears had been projected into Natasha's head.

He recalled the video tape he watched of Natasha interviewing Loki. Loki had said that he would make Clint kill her in every way he knew she'd feared and then he would take away Clint's mind control and swiftly kill him while he went insane with grief. Clint desperately hoped that wasn't one of the things she had seen.

Realizing his bow was still slung across his back from when he repositioned it; he took it off violently and threw it at the wood floors. "Goddammit!" he shouted, frustrated at the whole situation.

He made his way to the edge of her bed and sat down cupping his head in his hands. Tears burned in his throat at his unconscious partner lying behind him. He breathed in deeply through his nose muffling part of it because of his hands. Clint wiped at the tears that made their way past his eyelids.

The covers behind him shifted as the other presence in the room made itself known once more. Clint looked back at Natasha who was opening her tear ridden eyes. She searched the room until her eyes came to rest on Clint's hunched body turned to look at her. He crawled over to her but she tensed as he got closer.

"Nat, it's me. It's Clint, Clint Barton, your friend, your partner, your…._complicated_."

Natasha trembled as she tried to sort out reality. "You…you _hurt _me…"

The tone of Natasha's voice destroyed Clint. "Tash…that wasn't real. That was a vision projected into your mind by Deimos. She's gone…away. You're safe now."

Absentmindedly, Natasha felt her body for any stab wounds, there were none. She sighed and looked up at Clint nervously. Her eyes searched his and she could tell that he was telling the truth.

Tears made their way back to her eyes and spilled over. He finished crawling over to her and gripped her in his arms. She collapsed into his chest weeping like a small child. Clint stroked her head whispering that everything was going to be okay. "It…it was just so _real_…"

Clint sympathized with her and silently wished that she would never have to endure the things in her mind again. "I know…I know….shhhh you're okay now, you're safe. Nothing like that will _ever _happen to you again, I promise. You're safe now Tasha, you're safe." He whispered over and over again as he rocked her back and forth.

* * *

After some time, Natasha's tears had run out. She still lay cradled in Clint's arms and was just listening to him breathe. They weren't saying anything, but the timing and regularity of it was calming to her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Clint asked softly as he rubbed the back of her head.

Natasha whispered back so that Clint could barely hear. "Not right now…"

And so they sat. Clint leaned up against the head board of the bed rocking Natasha, the two of them drifting into sleep. Natasha's dreams haunted her, not to the extent of what Deimos had done, but close enough. She woke with a start after some time, waking Clint up with her. He bent down and kissed her on the forehead. She smiled to herself and pushed herself up into a sitting position while she still remained in his arms.

Silently lifting her head, she kissed him on the lips passionately. "Thank you…for being my complicated…"

* * *

**Author's Notes: **_**I hope you liked this chapter. **_

_**So I looked up the god/goddess of fear, and while is said that in greek terms the GOD of war was Deimos, I'm applying it to the goddess here...and she happens to be a Norse goddess too...oh well...I tried at least.**_

_**Not really much of a cliff hanger, but it can be better that way. **_

_**Whenever you review this story it helps the story along and myself as a writer. Thanks so much!**_


	10. Chapter 10: Rumor Has It

Author's Notes: **_Wow, family can be exhausting...and cumbersome. I squeezed this out while having a rainy day at the beach...oh well._**

**_Very minor spoilers for _The Bourne Ultimatum _which I am now obsessed with and I can't wait till _Bourne Legacy _comes out...oh gosh._**

**_Anyways, I hope you like this chapter, not much maybe just a small filler chapter. _**

**_Enjoy!_**

* * *

Later that night, Clint had left Natasha in her room to go pick up some food for her down in the cafeteria. Everyone was in charge of acquiring their own meals, so Clint figured that he would pick up some food for Natasha and him.

The food choice was limited. Tonight's choices were hamburgers and/or pasta with a few different sides. He took his phone out of his back pocket and sent Natasha a quick text.

To: Tasha

Pasta or Burger w/ a side of vegetables and fries.

-CB

Clint waited a few moments off to the side of the line and waited for Natasha's reply. The buzz a few minutes later confirmed his question.

From: Tasha

Pasta with a light sprinkling of parm. Cheese.

-Nat

Having Clint's suspicions being confirmed, he took his place in line and waited till he arrived at the front. He picked out a cheese burger for himself and Natasha's request of pasta. The desired side dishes were on his tray and he was almost out in the clear until Bruce stopped him from about halfway across the room.

"Clint! Hey wait up!" Clint froze in his spot and cursed silently to himself. Sure, he liked Bruce, he just didn't want anyone questioning him about what happened earlier, and he knew Bruce would be one to ask.

Clint turned around in his spot and met Bruce with a friendly smile. "Dr. Banner, fancy meeting you here…" he gestured to the cafeteria and continued to stand in his spot.

Bruce folded his hands together and looked at Clint with a curious face. "Hey, is Natasha okay? I…I heard what happened earlier. I read up on the situation and it was said the Deimos would kill its enemies by showing them their greatest fears." Clint sighed and looked at his tray of food.

"She's uh…she's fine. What did you hear exactly?" Clint was curious what type of story was circulating around the base.

"Oh," Bruce fiddled with his hands and thought. "Well, I heard that Natasha was interrogating Deimos—the one who tried to invade the base—and Deimos attacked her. Natasha collapsed or something and then you busted into the room and shot Deimos and then they tried to take Natasha but you stopped them." Clint reviewed the story in his head and nodded slightly confirming the story.

"Thanks for the concern. She's fine; I'm just bringing her some dinner." Clint gestured to his plate and nodded a farewell. He turned on his heel and walked back towards Natasha's room. As he was walking back, a few agents passed him in the hall and spoke simple 'hellos' to him. He tried to be as polite as possible, but the fact that they were already talking about the attack frustrated him. He shouldn't have expected anything less, but Clint knew that they were talking about what had happened more in depth.

Clint had stormed out of the booth as soon as Natasha had fallen to the floor. For all they had known she had been faking, but Clint had been up and out racing to try and get her out of that room. When they had gotten the door open he shot Deimos and then instead of rushing over to the monster to detain it, he ran over to Natasha to make sure she was okay, and when she wouldn't answer him he recalled the tightness in his throat from possible tears. He mentally scolded himself for not being more professional. And those were only half of his concerns.

What were they saying about Natasha was no doubt ten times worse than their relationship status and how Clint acted. Natasha Romanoff—the Black Widow—was supposed to be fearless, strong, and having been attacked by Deimos, the god/goddess of fear meant that she did in fact have fears and worries. Clint figured that all of the employees and agents were conversing among themselves what those fears very well could be. Any agent could pull her file and see information on Dreykov or her past—hell, they could find information on the two's partnership and info on the Loki interrogation.

Clint found himself walking faster until he practically passed their rooms. He back tracked and fished the key out of his pocket, balancing the tray of food in his other arm. The lock clicked and he turned the handle, pushing open the door.

Natasha was sitting up in bed watching a movie when Clint entered. "Whatcha watching?" Clint asked as he set the food down on the side table.

Natasha paused the television, smiled and looked at him. "The Bourne Ultimatum. It's my favorite one out of the three."

Clint climbed onto the bed and sat cross legged passing out food. "I didn't know you liked the trilogy. Have you read the books?" Natasha nodded as she put a French fry in her mouth. She swallowed and began to speak.

"Now Shhhh… I wanna watch this. Things are about to get tense. Bourne's trailing this guy with the last name 'Ross' and shit is about to go down. Get ready."

"Shit goes down this _whole_ movie. I actually don't think there's a dull moment in this one." Natasha rolled her eyes as she reached for the remote and pressed play.

* * *

"Bourne should come work for S.H.I.E.L.D. They'd love him…" Clint stated after Bourne swam away through the water at the end of the movie as the credits began to roll.

"Too bad he's a fictional character Mr. Cross." Natasha stated nonchalantly.

Clint looked over at her in mock surprise. "Um, excuse me? Are you mixing me up with someone else here? My name is _Clint Barton._" Natasha giggled and playfully punched Clint in the arm.

"I know your name stupid! There's a new Bourne movie coming out called _The Bourne Legacy _with an actor that looks like you and his name in the movie is called Aaron Cross. Stop being a smart ass."

"Well how was I supposed to know who that was? I'm not psychic. Besides, I kinda like the ring that name has. Aaron Cross…I may have to use that one day as a cover name while I'm on a mission. Remind me of that okay?" He looked at Natasha and smiled. Clint reached over to Natasha and took her hand in his. All of a sudden, Clint startled like he had been in a dream and was just woken up. "Shit."

Natasha looked up at him with a concerned face. "Clint, is everything okay?"

Reeling back in his mind Clint searched for what he meant to tell Natasha hours earlier. "I meant to tell you. I ran into Banner…he heard what had happened."

Natasha paled at Clint's message. "How accurate?"

"Almost dead on. Tasha, I'm not worried about the whole thing, I'm worried that they'll read into this. People are nosy, what if they get their hands on your file? What if they start learning more about you so that they can play you… use your weaknesses against you?" Natasha was shaking her head in denial.

"They wouldn't do that. That kind of stuff is secret, it's protected."

"But what _if _Tasha? I need to know. Am I at risk of possibly being manipulated by some possible double agent working for S.H.I.E.L.D. who's gonna get me to kill you or hurt you?" Clint realized his voice was rising and looked at Natasha. She was shaking like she had been when she was talking to Loki.

"I—I—the Loki tape…that's where you come in…" She looked down at her hands in shame. Clint could tell she was trying not to cry. He brushed a piece of hair from her eyes.

"You do realize that nothing anyone could _ever _try and persuade me with—be it info about you or the best bribe I could think of—I would _never _kill you in any of those ways?"

Natasha looked up at him quickly. "But what _if_? What is Deimos has part of the Tesseract's energy in her weapon or something like Loki did? I mean—I know it's improbable, but after Loki, I have yet to rule out the impossible."

Placing his hands on each side of Natasha's face, he spoke firmly and caringly. "If she starts coming at me with a weapon of any kind, whether it be glowing blue of not, I'm going to get away. Ok?"

Natasha nodded her head. Clint reached up and kissed Natasha on the forehead. Clint pulled away and made to get off of the bed.

Before Clint could get more than a foot though, Natasha grabbed his wrist. "Wait!" Clint looked up at Natasha. "Will you stay with me tonight?" Clint started to object but Natasha continued on before Clint could say anything. "I know it isn't professional, and last night was purely accidental, but I don't want to be alone…at least not with Deimos in the vicinity or near the base."

Clint sighed and climbed back to where he was sitting before. He looked down at what he was wearing and sighed, looking back up at Natasha. He was still wearing his S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform with his S.H.I.E.L.D. issued jacket thrown over his shirt and vest. "Have you seen what I'm wearing? Let me at least go and change into some more comfortable clothes."

Natasha sighed and released his arm. "Hurry back though." Clint nodded and slipped out of her room to go and change.

* * *

Slipping back into his room, he dug in his drawers and brought out a pair of grey sweat pants and a loose fitting black tee shirt. He threw his gear on the bed and grabbed his key along with Natasha's that he had picked up from her room, and left his room for the night.

When he stepped back into Natasha's room though, he found her all cuddled up in the blankets sleeping. A small smile spread onto his lips as he pulled back the covers and climbed in next to her. He adjusted the pillow under his head and lay facing Natasha.

He sighed, taking in Natasha's breathtaking beauty. Her red hair fell across her eyes; her nose twitched from one of her ringlets tickling her it. All of a sudden though her eyes squeezed together tighter than they had been and her whole body tensed up. One of her hands was clasped to the edge of the blankets and was now balled up into a tight fist.

Clint reached up to touch her rub her shoulder in comfort, but her eyes shot open at the slightest shift in the mattress. A hand slid out from under her pillow with a small knife clasped in her fist. Clint jerked back with sudden alertness. He caught her hand as it swiped down towards his chest. Subconsciously he registered that Natasha must not be fully awake yet.

Adrenaline pumping, he rolled onto her and straddled her holding both of her hands to the bed above her head. She struggled and kicked but he had her held down. "Natasha! It's me! It's Clint! Wake up!"

Natasha struggled still. Clint bent her wrist with the knife in it causing her to cry out in pain. The knife skidded onto the floor hitting the metal air vent. This small action seemed to bring her to her senses. She stopped struggling and looked up at the man straddling her abdomen. She was breathing hard and it appeared that Clint was as well.

"Clint?" Suddenly she seemed very weak and her fists unclenched. Clint let her hands go and shifted his weight off of her. "What—what happened?"

"You tried to attack me while you were sleeping with the dagger under your pillow." His voice was laced with malice as he readjusted the shirt on his body.

Natasha's face was horror stricken. She had been known to occasionally attack people in her sleep, but she never had dreamed it would ever be Clint. She jumped out of the bed and picked up the knife from the floor. She studied it in her hand with the same horror stricken face. She looked up at Clint practically speechless. "I—I don't…not at a base….what?"

Clint, sensing something was terribly wrong, got off the bed and walked over to her. "Natasha? You're not speaking in whole sentences. What don't you do at a base? Natasha, what's wrong, you _have _to tell me." He spoke firmly looking at her in the eyes.

"A knife." She uttered. She held up the slim blade in her pale white shaking fingers. "I—I don't sleep with a knife under my pillow while I'm at S.H.I.E.L.D…Clint…Someone's been into my room…"

* * *

**Author's Note: **_**Not much in this chapter...more of just a filler really...oh well. Things pick up in the next chapter so...yeah.**_

_**I threw in a little Bourne Legacy/Jeremy Renner reference, was it too cheesy or tacky? I don't know, maybe...oh well...**_

_**Whenever you review it helps me as a writer and helps move the story along. Thanks so much for reading!**_


	11. Chapter 11: Code 20

**Author's Notes: **_**Wow, it's been awhile. I've been at Band Camp for the past 2 weeks, I'm so sorry. But now I'm back to save you from that terrible cliffhanger. I hope you like it!**_

* * *

Last Time

_Clint, sensing something was terribly wrong, got off the bed and walked over to her. "Natasha? You're not speaking in whole sentences. What don't you do at a base? Natasha, what's wrong, you have to tell me." He spoke firmly looking at her in the eyes._

_"A knife." She uttered. She held up the slim blade in her pale white shaking fingers. "I—I don't sleep with a knife under my pillow while I'm at S.H.I.E.L.D…Clint…Someone's been into my room…"_

* * *

Clint's eyes widened as he looked at Natasha. "Are you sure? You didn't slip one under there just incase? You know…after the whole Deimos incident?"

Natasha shook her head horror struck. "I sleep with my door locked and my weapons close by, but not this close," she motioned to the knife in her hands. "I've been known to have outbursts like the one just now, and if I always had a weapon under my pillow than I'd be a lot more dangerous than a girl who's half asleep from a night terror kicking around. If there's really someone coming into my room about to attack me, I'd hear them, wake up, and get my weapons which are no more than five feet from my pillow."

Clint let this information sink in, surprised not to have known about it before. "Who could have done it? _When _could they have done it? You haven't left your room since you came back from the attack with Deimos."

Natasha sat down on the side of the bed and looked at the alarm clock sitting on the bedside table. It only said 10:45, but looking back on the events from earlier she realized how tired she was. She rubbed her eyes and placed her head in one of her hands propped up on her leg. "What if the person who came in here wasn't in here after the Deimos attack? What if they knew that we had slept in the same bed last night and assumed we would do it again tonight? What if they had read into my file enough to know I suffer from night terrors like this, so they put a knife under my pillow knowing that I would subconsciously find it and when I freaked out I would move to the closest target—you—and potentially try and kill you?"

"Yeah, but how would they have known that we'd be in your room?" Clint asked going towards the window.

"Maybe they didn't…maybe they placed one in both of our rooms. Maybe there's one under your pillow as we speak." Clint turned around and walked towards the door. Natasha lifted her head out of her hand and stood up. She raced to catch up to Clint as the door swung shut behind him.

"Clint!" she shouted after him as he went to go and unlock his door. She was in a simple tank top and boy shorts.

Clint pushed open the door to his room, determination on his face. Natasha sighed and dashed to his room. She caught the door as it was swinging shut. When she closed the door behind herself, Clint was at his bed throwing the pillows onto the floor. He knelt down and felt around. He must have gotten ahold of something because he pulled his hand back and stared at the eight inch long knife in his hand.

Natasha's legs felt weak as she stumbled to the bed. She felt nauseous all of a sudden as Clint sat down with the knife in his hand. "It was an assassination attempt…" he said aloud to himself.

"By who though?" Natasha asked staring at the wall. She refused to look at the knife feeling that if she did it would kill her partner for her.

"Could be anyone…Someone's been watching us. Think, who knew we slept in the same room last night?"

Natasha sat thinking. There was Tony, but their fellow Avenger member would never try and make one of them kill the other. There were several random agents that had passed their door and had probably heard Natasha in his room or never saw Natasha come out of Clint's room.

Standing up, Natasha stuck her head out of the door and looked down the hallway. She cursed to herself and pulled her head back into the room. "Our rooms can be seen from the reception desk."

Clint looked over at her questioningly. "Meaning…"

"That receptionist. I'm certain he's up to no good. He's the only one I can think of off the top of my head that might have seen me come in here and not left. He probably even saw you go into my room tonight, thus confirming his suspicions of us sleeping in the same room. What if he's a double agent?"

Clint walked over to his trashcan in the room and dropped the knife into the bin. "Tasha, you're losing it." Clint looked over at her with a slight smile on his face. "How about you stop worrying and get some rest. In the morning we'll go to Fury and look at the security tapes. This whole thing will be solved by tomorrow night okay?"

Natasha nodded her head. "I think I should probably go and sleep the rest of the night by myself in my own room. For all we know, more weapons were hid and I can't risk hurting you again." Clint nodded and walked over to Natasha. He swallowed her small form in an embrace and took in the smell of her hair. "I'm so sorry that I almost hurt you tonight. What if you hadn't been alert? What if you had gotten hurt?'

"I'm fine Natasha. We're going to figure out who tried to do this and we'll figure out a way for you to personally thank them for almost making you kill me, Ok?"

"I'll see you in the morning. Call you on your phone, okay?" Natasha nodded and walked out the door to her own room.

Back in her own room, Natasha searched the rest of her room for any weapons. She upturned the pillow Clint had been lying on and nearly fainted. Under his pillow lay a dagger, identical to the one that had been placed under her pillow.

She fumbled for her cell phone next to her bed and turned it on frantically. Her fingers were clammy so the buttons were refusing to respond. She wiped them on the bed sheets and tried again. Her fingers seemed to be dry enough now because the buttons were responding. She hit her speed dial number two and pressed enter. The phone began to ring and she relaxed a bit.

Clint's worried voice answered the phone. "Tasha? You okay?"

"No." Natasha had to take a few breaths to calm herself. "I searched the rest of the room for anymore unknown weapons."

"And?" Clint's voice was nervous.

"There was one….under the pillow you were sleeping on." Clint's breath caught in his throat. "I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep the rest of the night."

"You have to. Try to get some rest; we have things to do in the morning." Natasha sighed through the phone.

"Check your other pillows and tell me in the morning if you found anything."

"Kay. Goodnight Nat."

"Night." Natasha hung up the phone and placed it back on her nightstand. She didn't figure how she could sleep. Natasha didn't particularly want to go to bed and dream about killers and death. She didn't want to go to sleep and have a night terror of Clint killing her—or worse—her killing Clint.

The thought itself kept Natasha sitting upright in her bed in the dark, alone. At one point or another, Natasha felt herself doze off for an hour or two, but then a nightmare would start to emerge and her subconscious would wake itself up.

She continued to toss and turn until around four o'clock. Natasha sighed and threw back the sheets on her bed. She slipped some flip flops onto her feet and a dawned a light sweater and slipped out of the room. Making her way to the back stairwell where she had sat earlier that day, Natasha opened the door to the roof and breathed in the fresh desert air. She sighed and walked over to the spot where she had sat earlier that day.

"Wow, you're really out of it Nat." Clint spoke up behind her making her jump. She turned around and watched as he came from the door to where she was standing. "I thought I told you to get some rest?"

Natasha composed herself and waited to talk while he came to stand next to her. "I couldn't sleep. Besides, shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"_I _have been. I was sleeping over there," he pointed to where he had come from. "Before you came barging through that door and woke me up." Natasha looked up at his face and saw that his eyes still looked slightly groggy.

She stuttered trying to come up with something to say. "Oh, I needed to get some air. That's all. I'll go back to my room; this roof seems to be slightly occupied." She said trying to be witty.

Clint rolled his eyes and motioned her to come back to where he had been lying down. "Come on sour puss, we can talk." Clint began to walk back and Natasha followed reluctantly.

Sitting cross-legged, she sat parallel to Clint who sat propped against the wall of the door. They sat in silence for several moments. Clint studied the sky and Natasha studied the ground and played with a small pebble lying next to her. "What did Deimos show you?" Clint asked abruptly.

Natasha started. She looked up at him with a surprised look painted across her features. Before Clint could process anything though, she turned her head away and thought. "Oh…uh- well…"

"More than just about myself hurting you." He quickly added.

Natasha thought for a moment before answering. She didn't look up at Clint as she silently contemplated what she should and shouldn't tell him. "Things from my past: Dreykov, Loki…you." She sighed, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

"Why don't you want to talk about it?" Clint asked. He figured he might have been a little intrusive, but he found himself wanting to know.

She looked up at him, her eyes unsure. "B-because, if I talk about them then it's real. Everything is real. If I talk about you killing me then in a way it happened. If I just store it away then it's gone, it never happened, it's never coming back."

Clint untangled his legs and sat up on his knees as he bent towards Natasha. "We both know that's not true. Just because you push something away doesn't mean it won't come back."

Natasha turned her head away from his and stood up leaving him staring up at her in mock disappointment. "I'm sorry. But I've decided that I'm trying this new thing where, if you aren't seen with me other than missions you won't be in danger of being killed accidentally." She looked over towards the horizon where little bits of pink were slowly seeping into the atmosphere around them.

Standing up, Clint scoffed, slightly annoyed at Natasha for closing herself off. "Natasha, you can't just close yourself off like that. You just sound stupid when you talk like that." Clint immediately regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

She looked over at him with a shocked expression on her face and tears pooling at her eyes. "You-you can't _possibly _think for a-a _second _that I even remotely _like _this!" she yelled at him making no effort to keep her voice down. "What would I do if I-I hurt you like I almost did tonight? Huh? How could I live with myself?!" She shouts still. She looked into Clint's eyes trying to see his reaction to what she was saying.

Clint stared back at her with the same intensity that she had. "You. Won't. Kill. Me." He stated firmly as he gripped her shoulders securely. He pulled her into a tight embrace and she stood with him, her hands wrapped tightly around his waist. "Stop thinking like this. You're stronger than this, I know you can be. Soon enough we're going to have to actually fight something again and you need to be ready. Okay?"

Natasha nodded into his shoulder and continued to stand there until a small ring emanated from his pocket. He pulled away looking at his phone as he brought it out of his pocket. He answered it feigning an air of tiredness in his voice. "Hello?" he spoke into the microphone.

Hill's voice spoke from the speaker. "Cut the shit Barton, I can see you from the hospital window." He pulled the phone from his ear and looked in the direction from which she must have been calling. He saw her standing in the window and gave her a small sarcastic wave. "We need you to come to the hospital wing urgently right away. Bring Romanoff."

"I'm a little busy." He replied annoyed.

"Yeah well… this is a code twenty; both of your presences are required. Get down here." Clint's breath caught and he turned to look at her through her window.

Natasha looked at him with questioning eyes as he tried to run over the possibilities in his mind. "Do you mean…" he didn't finish his sentence before Hill confirmed it into the phone. "We'll be there in a minute." Clint hung up the phone and turned to Natasha.

"Shit. We need to go to the hospital wing. Code twenty." She stiffened at the familiar code and seemed to put two and two together. She froze in her spot causing Clint to push her in front of him leading her to the stairs. "Dammit Natasha, let's go, we don't have time to waist. We need to go _now_."

* * *

**Author's Notes: **_**So I actually looked up the real emergency code for an escaped hosptial prisoner and it was code 20...so here we go.**_

_**Things are about to heat up really fast in the next chapter so get ready. Oh, And I promise not to extend the update time as long. I feel so guilty.**_

_**I hope you liked it! Every time you review you help me as a writer and you help the story along. Thanks for everyone that helps with this story!**_


	12. Chapter 12: Explained Events

**Author's Notes:** **_*sigh*... well, we sorta get an explanation on the whole escape in this chapter. Is it weird to say that this story is coming to a close? Personally, I already sorta have the last chapter and stuff planned out and I can't wait._**

**_Anyways, I start school on the 14th of August. Yuck. I'll mostly write after homework during the week and work on uploading on the weekends, sooner if you're lucky. Welp, that's school for you.  
_**

**_Sorry that this chapter is a bit short...  
_**

**_Without further ado, I give you chapter 12.  
_**

* * *

Halfway down the stairs Natasha started walking for herself. They busted through the stairwell door into the hallway. Soon the two ended up in front of their rooms breathing moderately heavy. "Five minutes to get changed and whatever else you need. Meet back up out here okay?" Natasha didn't wait for an answer before she pushed through her door and got to work piling up her things.

She didn't bother putting on her uniform; her only concern was putting on clothes that actually covered her more than what she was wearing at the moment. She slipped on jeans, a pair of boots, and a tank top. She grabbed a gun and a few knives and slipped them into their respective holsters around her thighs. Before she knew it, she was standing outside Clint's door rapping on it with her fist.

While she was waiting for Clint to open up, she thought about what he had said earlier. He had told her to be strong and that she shouldn't be afraid of hurting him. For the first time since hearing that, she let the words sink in.

Clint threw open the door cutting off her train of thought. "Woah, you ready to go?" Clint asked after recovering his balance after nearly running into her.

Natasha looked up at him with a clear head. "Yeah, let's go."

The two agents walked relatively fast down the hallway and were three quarters past the main reception area when Natasha stopped in her tracks.

Clint turned around when he realized that she wasn't with him. "Natasha? What's wrong?"

She was looking at the reception desk with vague interest. "He's not there. The receptionist isn't there, _why _isn't he there?" She was talking more to herself than to Clint.

"We'll take it up with Fury. If it makes you feel better I can ask him why he's not at his desk." Clint was trying to act supportive, but deep down he had to admit that Natasha had a valid point. Ever since the other night the receptionist had been acting a little strange.

"No," she said turning away to look at Clint. "I'll ask him myself." She began to walk again with Clint at her side.

The two of them were at the medical building within ten minutes. Maria Hill was waiting for them in the lobby and Clint could tell by her expression that there wasn't any good news to be given.

"There isn't much evidence but we know that Deimos was helped." Hill explained as they began walking to where everything had happened.

"Have you checked the security cameras yet?" Natasha asked as the trio loaded into the elevator.

"We were waiting for you two and Fury to get here. The director arrived a few minutes before you guys. He instructed me to wait for you in the lobby."

The rest of the way to the scene was in silence. Hill knocked on the open door signaling their arrival. "Ah, good, now we can watch the surveillance tapes." Fury turned to the security staff expectantly. They silently walked out of the room to go prepare the tapes.

"How _the hell _could she have escaped?" Barton asked irritated.

"That's what we're trying to find out here Barton. Don't get an attitude with anyone here; we're all on the same team." Fury threatened, turning towards Clint.

"I thought people were watching her! I thought we were trying to _avoid _another situation like Loki!" Clint wasn't making an effort to keep his voice down now.

"Agent Barton, you must not be aware that we're trying to keep this whole thing low key, and shouting about something that isn't necessarily true is going to scare people." Hill spoke viciously, moving to stand next to Fury.

"Really, Hill? Do you not remember _anything_ from two months ago?" Clint challenged back.

Hill was practically fuming. "Do you?! You weren't even _yourself_! If I recall your judgment was impaired for a good three quarters of the whole ordeal, only to be brought back by a kick to the head and help us out in the last leg of the battle."

Clint took a sharp breath in. He clenched and unclenched his fists and teeth in an effort to release the tension from his body. Natasha didn't say anything but he could feel her move slightly closer to him in a gesture of reassurance. "Thanks for that," Clint managed to get out calmly. "The guilt was _just _beginning to leave my system until you brought it back just now. _Great work."_

Fury huffed, clearly annoyed. "If you're done bickering children, we have a video to watch." Clint looked over at the security officer motioned for them all to follow him to the computer monitor.

Once they were all situated around the monitor with the past few hours footage, the officer fast forwarded the tape until Natasha spoke up.

"Stop!" Natasha yelped at the screen. She reached forward and planted a finger on the grainy screen. "That's the receptionist up by the main building! I'm positive… Can you enhance it?" The officer did as he was told and Maria looked alarmed.

"That's Colton Hughes; he works up at the main building like Romanoff said." Maria confirmed from behind Clint.

They continued to watch as Colton entered Deimos's room and began talking to her. Then he did what everyone had hoped wouldn't happen. Colton released her from the restraints S.H.I.E.L.D. had put on her and they watched as she stood up. She took the receptionist's shoulder and looked into the camera which was situated in the corner of the room. Using a force none of them could see, the camera lens broke and the tape went fuzzy.

Clint stepped back and looked at the tape. "Well, there's your double agent sir. He's already left the premises by the way."

Fury looked over at Clint and Natasha. "Barton, Romanoff, gather the remaining Avengers and send them to the conference room from earlier this week. Emergency meeting, we need to find these two and prevent another event like Loki." Clint and Natasha nodded and walked off, back towards the elevators.

* * *

**Author's Notes:****_So the meeting and the beginning of actiony stuff begins to happen. I'm already getting a head start into writing it._**

**_So suspicions were confirmed in this chapter but more info on that in the next chapter also.  
_**

**_The character 'Colton Hughes' is loosely based off of actor Ian Bohen. After watching him in Teen Wolf I can't get over the fact that he looks like the perfect guy in this case, especially when I was brainstorming him in the final chapter. Eep I can't wait for you guys to read that. Whatever, I'll stop rambling now.  
_**

**_If you liked this chapter, why not drop me a review? Thanks for reading!  
_**


	13. Chapter 13: Vengance

**Author's Notes:****_Wow, this one's a little longer...Anyways, it's heating up. After this chapter, only 2 more to be released...*sob*_**

**_I've been with this story all summer practically, and this will have been the first long story that I've finished thus far.  
_**

**_Anyways, enjoy chapter 13!  
_**

* * *

**Last Time:**

_Fury looked over at Clint and Natasha. "Barton, Romanoff, gather the remaining Avengers and send them to the conference room from earlier this week. Emergency meeting, we need to find these two and prevent another event like Loki." Clint and Natasha nodded and walked off, back towards the elevators._

* * *

"What did I tell you? I told you that receptionist was up to no good." Natasha stated. Her voice was monotone as they walked back to the main building. She wasn't excited about her little victory, she hated being right about these things.

"Well, you were right, now we just have to find him and kill him. Would you like to do the honors when that happens?" He looked over at Natasha with a solemn face.

"We'll see." She replied as they pushed open the doors and were met with a blast of cool air and a still empty reception desk.

* * *

The two split up and knocked on all the teams doors letting them know they were needed in the conference room.

With everyone in the conference room groggy, it wasn't relatively noisy other than Tony who was exclaiming rather loudly that this was absurd, and that he should still be sleeping. Fury walked in as he was in the middle of a rant and eyed him.

"People listen up!" Fury shouted. Everyone's attention turned to him as he began talking about the newest developments. "The goddess from Asgard, Deimos, has escaped from the perimeters of this base. One of our own here helped her escape. Agent Colton Hughes, he was the main receptionist in the lobby here." There were a few murmurs of shock.

"Don't tell me we have another Loki on our hands." Bruce piped up, slightly annoyed at the turn of events.

"That's why you all are here. Now we're not sure where the two are headed, but we believe that Hughes could have been using ex-Agent Brown's name to steal weapons from the unreported break in two months ago. Meaning that the two of them, and whoever else they've recruited, are most likely armed and dangerous."

"Well that's just fine and dandy, but are we just expected to sit here until we hear of where they—'' Before Tony could finish his sentence though Hill poked her head through the door. Her hair was frazzled as if she had just run the whole way to get to Fury.

"Sir," she started breathless. "Unusual activity on the map heading for Albuquerque thought you might want to know. It could be Deimos and Hughes."

Fury nodded solemnly. "Team, suit up. You have a half hour to be out back ready to go." Fury didn't wait for anyone's responses as he left the room after Hill.

There was slight commotion as everyone was suddenly awake and talking. Steve left almost as quickly as Clint and Natasha. Bruce was walking out with Thor and Tony, who was chatting up a storm about how he knew Hughes had been the double agent all along.

* * *

Back in the main control room, Hill and Fury were bent over a computer with a map pulled up. There were two dots moving in the direction of Albuquerque, and they were moving fast. A little way off to either side were three other dots traveling at the same rate of speed.

"They're surrounding the city we think, sir." Hill spoke confidently.

"Damn right they are." Fury looked at the formation of people closing in on the major city. "We _cannot _afford another situation like this dammit!" Fury pounded his fist on the table making the monitor shake. "Get the mayor and police chief on the phone, explain the situation. Tell them to get as many people indoors as possible. Get them low into the ground if possible. The less people there for Deimos to kill, the better." Hill nodded and walked outside the room to make the vital call.

* * *

Everyone slowly filtered back onto the tarmac. The Quinjet they would be taking was already being prepared for the journey to the city. Clint, Natasha, Steve, Tony, and Thor were each dressed in their respective uniforms with choice weapons close by. Bruce appeared in an old shirt and pants large enough to cover him when he hulked out. Fury trudged outside to them all with his usual black trench coat on even in the sweltering heat.

"You all, get in and get out. Try to destroy as little as possible this time around, okay? Thor, you need to get Deimos before anything serious happens. She's most powerful with her eyes, if you can blind her or cover them somehow, take the opportunity. You and Stark can fly, so go ahead in order to survey the area. Report anything and everything back to the jet alright? Good luck." Everyone nodded in confirmation. Tony and Thor took off ahead of the Quinjet as everyone else loaded onto the jet.

The jet ride into Albuquerque took about a half hour. Steve talked about a plan of action the whole time. Tony and Thor were going to stay above the city until they figured out what was happening. Steve wanted as many people on the ground as possible. Clint, Natasha, and his self were going to patrol the east side with the Hulk patrolling the west. Clint objected to being stationed on the ground, but Steve argued that the Thor and Tony could monitor above by themselves. If Clint was needed he'd be picked up by one of them.

Coming into the city, everyone noticed that there was a lack of civilian life. _Good, _Clint thought to himself, _the less people that risked getting hurt the better._ There wasn't any sign of Deimos or Hughes either. The Quinjet landed in an intersection with a light shutter as it touched down. The back door opened up letting the team be greeted by Tony and Thor.

"There hasn't been much activity," Tony spoke up. "But they're definitely here. They have about ten other humans and a few aliens. No signs of any major alien tech though."

"Where've they gone?" Steve asked from behind Clint.

"That, we are not sure. Many tunnels here, they disappeared into one of many." Thor responded.

"Alright, Tony and Thor, you guys will be our eyes in the sky. Let us know if anything happens. It's too quiet here in my opinion. Something is gonna happen, and it's going to happen soon."

* * *

The streets were mostly deserted. There were a few people out and about which reassured Steve. Almost all of the buildings surrounding him were locked which meant that people had gotten out of the way. He almost smiled to himself in reassurance.

He absentmindedly heard Tony jabbering over the line about how it was too early for this kind of stuff.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement though. Spinning around, he was greeted with two big burly looking animal/men type things. They must have each been six feet easily. They had the bodies of men, but their hair was overgrown. Everything about them was funky, from their faces to the way their arms hung.

"And who might you two lovelies be?" He asked tentatively.

"Servants of the almighty lady Deimos." The one on the right said before he flung a dagger at Steve.

Steve barely had time to deflect it with his shield before the dagger made contact with the metal. Flinging the shield to the one who threw the dagger, he made for the ground as another knife was thrown towards him. His shield rebounded off of the one guy sending him flailing. Catching the shield again he reached a finger up to his ear to report what was happening.

"This is Cap, I have a pair of Deimos's uglies down on 10th street." He flung his shield at the other guy and almost dodged a knife. It scraped past his right side landing a few feet away. He hissed in pain and stumbled slightly. He did a double take in that instant. A measly little slice like that wasn't supposed to hurt. He glanced down at the slice in his uniform and noticed a green liquid clinging to the fabric. Scrambling to his earpiece he called as calm as he could muster. "Careful guys, if the things have knives, I think it's safe to assume that the covered them in a type of poison."

* * *

Clint had tuned out Tony's garble about fifteen minutes ago, but then Steve had come onto the coms all frantic. "_This is Cap, I have a pair of Deimos's uglies down on 10__th__ street." _

"So, finally some action…" he whispered to himself. He looked up at what street he was on and figured he was at least five blocks from Steve, he would leave this one up to Thor or Tony.

But then he heard Steve come back on, a note of pain in his voice. _"Careful guys, if the things have knives, I think it's safe to assume that the covered them in a type of poison." _

'So it's that type of party eh?' he thought to himself. 'Well, two can play at that game.' He thought as he readied a poisonous arrow tip. His train of thought was cut short though when he heard a low growl turned hiss come from one of the many alleys he was passing. In an instant he had his bow nocked and ready, aimed down the alley.

The creature, about the same size as the one Steve was facing, sprung out of the alley. It definitely was ugly and seemed to be a hybrid between a monster and a man. Clint released his arrow and it hit just to the left of the heart. Sure, they were fast, but their reflexes were slower.

Getting into a running stance, it took off towards Clint. Turning on his heel, he took off running the opposite way from the man-beast.

Instinctively, he reached up and tapped his communicator for talking capabilities. "I got an ugly on this end too, headed towards 5th avenue. Copy."

"_Remember to watch out for the knives. They're deadly accurate and laced with a type of poison." _Steve responded out of breath.

"Due noted. Also, Stark? Could you possibly spot me from above?" Clint huffed.

Stark's communicator crackled in Clint's ear. _"No can do birdbrain. There's a nasty stolen fighter jet who just coaxed me into a little fight above the skies of New Mexico…_again_."_

"Great…" he clicked off his com and turned to fire an arrow at the man-beast thing still running after him. It landed just to the left, missing its heart again. Before turning back around though, he caught a glimpse of something silver and shiny before it was shooting his way.

He tried to dodge it, he did, but like Steve had stated earlier, they were deadly accurate. The knife sank into his lower back causing him to lose his balance and tumble towards the pavement.

Rolling a few feet, he instantly felt the knife wound, but he also felt more. Whatever they had laced the blade with was now seeping into him. He prayed there were no long term effects.

"This is Hawkeye, I've been compromised, I repeat, I've been compromised. Back up requested." He breathed into the communicator, gritting his teeth against the pain.

"_This is Widow, I'm tracking your location now. I'll be there as soon as I can." _Natasha's voice came over trying not to sound concern.

"Be careful, keep your eyes open." He looked over a few feet from him at the bow laying out of his grasp. He began to army crawl, to an extent, in an effort to reclaim his prized possession.

Just as his fingers were about to close over the string though, a large leather steel-toed boot kicked it a few feet further away. He grunted in annoyance as the pair of feet came to stand in front of him. "What the hell do you guys even want?"

There was a low guttural laugh from the beast's throat. "Vengeance for our queen Deimos on the son of Laufy's defeat."

"Back to the whole 'Loki' thing, are we?" Clint figured that if he could keep the thing talking long enough for Natasha to get here he might have a chance at beating it.

Alas though, to hope he could stall an alien for that long would have been to hope for too much. Without another word, the beast kicked Clint hard in the side sending him sprawling onto his stomach. As Clint tried to grab the thing's foot for leverage as it came around again, it caught Clint's arm instead. He twisted it at a sharp angle causing Clint to let out a whimper. With a swift stomp to his shoulder bone, it was now broken too.

Clint fought back any emotional response the beast was looking for. He picked him up by the back of his neck making Clint cling to his broken arm and shoulder. "I was told to bring back the little hawk and his fiery spider, _alive_." It sneered into his ear.

From the mouth of the of a side street, he saw the outline of a female with short curly hair. A sense of relief swept through him at the sight of Natasha. "That's not going to work out for everyone." She stated, standing with her gun at her side.

The man-beast released his hold on Clint, letting his feet hit the pavement. The weight of his battered body was too much however, and his legs buckled underneath him. Twisting from his injured arm, he landed with a thud on his right wrist.

Natasha started towards them, firing off a few shots. The beast dodged every shot though, and then vanished into thin air. Taking it as a break, Natasha ran for Clint. He was lying in a crumpled heap, cradling his left arm. His uniform was soaked with blood on his lower back, and his right wrist was black and blue from taking his full weight onto the pavement a few minutes ago.

"Clint," she muttered, at a loss of what to tend to first. "What the hell happened to you?"

"That-that big ugly that was just here. _This _is why I stay above the action." He choked out just loud enough for her to hear.

"Well it's a good thing the 'ugly' wandered off now isn't it? I ran out of ammo on the way over here believe it or not. I got myself into a little debacle with one of those things. I emptied all of my clips, but it's dead now. Let me call a medical team down here for you." She finished, reaching up to her communicator. She walked over to where his bow was lying and picked it up while Clint pushed himself up against the wall of a building. She walked back over to him and sat down next to him looking intently at his disfigured arm.

She stood up and began pacing after learning that it would take S.H.I.E.L.D. at least a half-hour to get to the pair. Clint had let Natasha keep the bow at her side incase anything came their way again, and considering the fact that he was in no shape to pull back the string of a bow like his.

Natasha kept her com switched on in case any news came through. She was twirling an arrow around her fingers and Clint had his head leaned up against the wall with his eyes closed. A stiff breeze filtered through the street coming from nowhere. Clint's neck snapped up to see Natasha with an arrow nocked, pointed straight at the heart of Colton Hughes.

* * *

**Author's Notes:****_Wow, so um... I debated on where to stop this chapter, and I ultimately decided to stop it here._**

**_So like I said earlier, only 2 more chapters leveling up to a total of 15 chapters. I can't believe it...anyways, enough babbling.  
_**

**_Started school up again officially, wouldn't mind reading some of your lovely thoughts on this chapter to take my mind off of some of the work.  
_**

**_As always, thank you all tremendously for reading, favoring, and reviewing my stories. I  
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